Trump Escalates Republican War Against Voting in Cuckoo Recount Effort

Jacob Lawrence - from the Migration Series (1940–41)

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — In modern America, the Republican Party's war against voters is waged as a full-spectrum assault against liberty, accelerating in the last ten years.

Destroying black and brown lives, stripping human beings of dignity and liberty, have long been sport for white folks here. But Republicans have escalated  systemic destruction of the foundational right to cast votes (see Article III, Wisconsin Constitution; Ballotpedia).

Trump's new effort to ultimately convince courts to declare that 100,000s of voters' ballots are illegal is the latest of this anti-human project.

Trump's campaign gives County Canvassing Boards names of disfavored voters and says, throw out these ballots.

Extreme action for certain, but business as usual in a broader sense.

I worked as a Wisconsin election inspector (poll worker), for some 60 shifts between 1998 and 2016.

It used to be funny — because it was pathetic — to witness the sudden chill in the room, uncomfortable shifting in chairs, worried expressions of white poll workers morphing into grimaces bordering on disbelief as young black men entered the polling place in the morning shift at the old Fire Station Number Two in Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Alder Dist One).

Well, who can blame the white folks? 

You should have seen the voters' black hair, dark-brown skin, often adorned in golden jewelry and tight dark tee-shirts of I don't know what. You know what they do, who they are. 

And our white votes get cancelled out by these guys?

It's the way it is.

White poll workers and the Fitchburg City Clerk's office were not amused by black folks. In fact, they were hostile to anyone who reported Fitchburg racism. I know. [By the way, anecdotal reports from the 2020 presidential general elections indicate the voting experience is getting better now.]

This is Wisconsin, so it may surprise readers what one becomes inured to, but from a first-person stand-point, I can say I tried to alert the political world about Fitchburg. See also Kaleem Caire, president and CEO of One City Learning Centers, and his experience with Fitchburg.

Nothing surprises me here.

Trump's latest absurd forays into obliterating swaths of voters can be seen as a continuation of white efforts to troll black and brown folks, ongoing Republican work to transform election law to stop non-Republican voters and a heightened operation against entire jurisdictions such as Dane County and Milwaukee County. (See Beck, Glauber and Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Nichols, The Capital Times).

In 2016, in the voting rights litigation, One Wis­con­sin Insti­tute v. Thom­sen, much Repub­li­can vot­er-obstruc­tion leg­is­la­tion was swept away, opening up metro voting districts to help voters vote and have those votes count.

Of course the Republican legal empire struck back.

In June 2020, Judge Frank Easterbrook, from the Seventh Circuit, using his propensity to play loose with facts, penned Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs, (Nos. 16-3003, 16-3052), (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Easterbrook reinstated most of the Republican-enacted restrictions on early voting.

Easterbrook sees no racism in Republicans' Wisconsin election law, as long the Republican Party's animus toward minorities includes an animus toward Democrats. A bizarre judicial doctrine.

Crazy is the order of the day.

You hear about the Trump campaign attorney heading up the stop-the-ballots effort here? 

Trump's lead attorney, Jim Troupis, and his wife's votes would be invalidated, were Trump to prevail in his current recount-and-stop ballots efforts in Wisconsin (see Beck, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Law and Crime). 

This is because Trump wants early voting, (in-person, absentee), votes invalidated in Dane and Milwaukee counties. 

One can think of a few Due Process and Equal Protection problems with Trump's sought-after remedy for an imagined injury at the hands of Dane and Milwaukee counties.

Bear in mind, limiting early voting and racial intent and effect in Republican efforts to halt voting in jurisdictions where black and brown people live is fine, [no Constitutional problems], with Easterbrook.

But even Easterbrook, were this case to reach the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, would recoil.

It's crazy time in Wisconsin, but crazy is pretty much standard-going the last ten years, and is consistent with Wisconsin's secular religion: Most white folks really don't like black and brown people very much.

Republican Stop-Voters Project Puts Racism on Display

Update: "Over 10,000 absentee ballots were dropped off with poll workers stationed at parks throughout Madison Saturday, and hundreds registered to vote during a first-time event called Democracy in the Park," reports The Capital Times.

Madison, Wisconsin — The Republican Party reaction to the Democracy in the Park initiative is telling.

Democracy in the Park is a City ballots event here that for two consecutive Sept-Oct Saturdays allows voters to drop off ballots at over 200 secure locations sited in City parks, and staffed by sworn election officials in blaze vests.

Madison residents can also get their absentee ballots witnessed, and can register to vote there, though they cannot obtain ballots in the manner of a polling place.

Wisconsin Republicans and rightwingers across the nation responding to news of last Saturday's Democracy in the Park were incensed.

"It’s going to take six months to unravel the Democrat fraud in this election," writes Republican actor James Woods.

Woods did not cite one instance of fraud, but to a Republican a black or brown person voting is an act of fraud in itself, as black or brown citizens are impersonating regular folks.

This is the fight of the modern Civil Rights movement playing out again, and it's a losing battle for Republicans and any Democrat who shies away from this fight.

People with black hair and dark skin are normal folks. But in Wisconsin, in Fitchburg alder District One, and among Republicans, this fact is under hysterical dispute.

Next Saturday is the second Democracy in the Park. 

News is after the first event, Madisonians may have gone too far: A statement from the City Clerk reads that the Madison Fire Dept washed the poll-workers' vests.

It's an outrage, call the police!

A big thank you to @MadisonWIFire for washing our poll worker high visibility vests this week! And thank you to the @CityofMadison City Assessor and Fleet Service Superintendent for also offering to help with this big task! #TeamCity pic.twitter.com/pdlpCG6Q8Q

— Madison WI Clerk (@MadisonWIClerk) September 27, 2020

I have worked as a poll worker in Madison and journalist covering the Madison commitment to allow voters to cast ballots and have ballots counted.

White rightwingers will, seriously, call the police on pro-voting activity. 

I have seen this racism and experienced it personally on multiple occasions.

The wrong people voting is a phenomenon white racists will never accept.

"The threat that this procedure poses to ballot integrity is manifestly obvious,' writes Misha Tseytlin, former Republican Wisconsin Solicitor General, on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, (R-Juneau), and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, (R-Rochester).

The Madison City Attorney responded to Republicans in a two-page letter which makes quick work of the unsupported allegations. The City letter dated Sept 26, 2020 is reproduced below:

September 26, 2020

Dear Misha:

I am responding to your letter to Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl regarding the City’s Democracy in the Park event being held this weekend to facilitate voter registration and the legal return and collection of absentee ballots.

Your letter states that this event constitutes an “illegal collection of ballots” and “falls outside lawful categories” but you provide absolutely no legal support for that allegation. You simply cite statutes that outline the process for absentee voting. If you could please identify a statute that you believe is being violated, I could try to respond to your broad unsupported allegations.

You also state that the threat to ballot integrity is manifestly obvious. The procedures that the City Clerk has established to secure ballots are equivalent to the procedures used to secure all absentee ballots, which your clients have helped to establish in Wisconsin Statutes and found to be acceptable. Sworn election officials will retrieve ballots that have already been issued and will ensure that ballots are properly witnessed and are secured in sealed in absentee ballot envelopes and ballot containers with tamper-evident seals, to be tabulated on Election Day. The election officials will maintain a chain of custody log that is open to public inspection. No new ballots will be issued in the parks.

As you know, both major political parties are able to nominate election officials to work at polling places. The City of Madison invited election officials nominated by both the Republican and Democratic Parties to work at Democracy in the Park, and received no complaints or concerns regarding the procedures to be used from those officials.

You also state that there is no justification for this “ad hoc, unsecure and unlawful approach.” Clearly this event is neither unsecure nor unlawful or you would have cited a relevant prohibition. And the definition of “ad hoc” is “for this purpose only.” The justification to sponsor this event “for this purpose only” is that COVID-19 has placed significant pressure on both voters and election officials to facilitate as much voting as possible prior to Election Day. Governmental leaders from both political parties have
acknowledged this reality and encouraged voters to submit ballots early. In addition, the well-publicized challenges of the U.S. Postal Service have diminished the public’s trust in that agency to deliver ballots in a timely and transparent manner.

Your letter states that there is a “grave risk” that all of the ballots collected at Democracy in the Park will be challenged in court and ultimately invalidated. You cite Wis. Stat. § 6.93 in support of this statement. That statute states that absentee ballots may be challenged for cause. The administrative rules implementing that statute establish specific reasons for challenging a voter when the challenger has first-hand knowledge to suspect that the voter is not a qualified elector because 1) the person is not a citizen of the United States; 2) the person is not at least 18 years of age; 3) the person has not resided in the election district for at least 10 days; 4) the person has a felony conviction and has not been restored to civil rights; 5) the person has been adjudicated incompetent; or 6) the person has voted previously in the same election. See EL §§ 9.01 and 9.02, Wis. Adm. Code.

The allowable reasons do not include that the challenger does not like the manner in which an absentee ballot is returned. Any elector who abuses the right to challenge may be subject to sanctions under Wis. Stat. §7.41(3). EL § 9.02, Wis. Adm. Code. Given these provisions, I do not understand why you believe Wis. Stat. § 6.93 supports your threat that all ballots collected at Democracy in the Park are subject to challenge. If you have some legal basis for that statement, please share it so that the City can address your concern before the election and resolve any confusion that your allegations have caused. If there is
no legal basis, we request that you retract your letter to Clerk Witzel-Behl.

Absent any directive from the Wisconsin Elections Commission or a court, the City will proceed with Democracy in the Park, and it will process the ballots collected with other absentee ballots pursuant to Wisconsin Statutes. All voters are welcome to participate and observe the process which is designed to bring the entire community together to participate in democracy. I trust that is a goal you and your clients can support.

Finally, I invite you and your clients to pick up the phone and contact me or the City Clerk if you have additional questions or concerns about the manner in which the City of Madison conducts elections. I am glad to discuss your questions directly so that we can alleviate any concerns you and your clients may have, rather than having to obtain your letter from the media. This tactic demeans the seriousness of your allegations and signals a desire to simply discourage participation by voters in Madison.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Michael Haas
City Attorney

Wisconsin Republicans: Cease and Desist Voting in Madison Now

Updated: Madison, Wisconsin — Republicans are angry at a City of Madison effort to help voters cast their ballots.

Voters will be able drop off their absentee ballots, have their ballots witnessed and register to vote at one of over 200 City parks in a City initiative called "Democracy in the Park," held on Sept 26 and Oct 3.

Writes the Madison City Clerk:

Democracy in the Park: created by, planned by, staffed by, and paid for by the @CityofMadison Clerk’s Officehttps://t.co/1hyEAzhX2I#MadisonVotes2020 #VoteByMail #vote #elections2020 pic.twitter.com/TWRbdyk00p

— Madison WI Clerk (@MadisonWIClerk) September 25, 2020

The problem for Republicans is many of the voters at Democracy in the Park events are likely to include the wrong kind of voters — black, brown and young voters — the very people whom Republicans have worked to stop from casting votes.

The ballot drop-off sites also have the effect of alleviating the burden of delivering a voluminous number of ballots through the mail, an effect which would be beneficial to voters.

The City of Madison will not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, political orientation and age, and such non-discriminatory administration is an electoral problem for the Republican Party that relies on discrimination and gerrymandering to win elections.

Most voters of varied race and ethnicity live close to City parks.

Reports Elizabeth Beyer in the Wisconsin State Journal:

The state’s two most powerful Republican lawmakers sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Madison City Clerk’s Office on Friday ahead of a ballot collection event to be held in city parks Saturday, calling the effort 'illegal' and warning the ballots would be challenged in court and potentially invalidated.

'The threat that this procedure poses to ballot integrity is manifestly obvious,' Misha Tseytlin, former state solicitor general, wrote on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

The Madison City Attorney responded to Republicans in a two-page letter which made quick work of the unsupported allegations. Reads the City letter in part:

I am responding to your letter to Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl regarding the City’s Democracy in the Park event being held this weekend to facilitate voter registration and the legal return and collection of absentee ballots. 

Your letter states that this event constitutes an 'illegal collection of ballots' and 'falls outside lawful categories' but you provide absolutely no legal support for that allegation.  You simply cite statutes that outline the process for absentee voting.  If you could please identify a statute that you believe is being violated, I could try to respond to your broad unsupported allegations. 

You also state that the threat to ballot integrity is manifestly obvious.  The procedures that the City Clerk has established to secure ballots are equivalent to the procedures used to secure all absentee ballots, which your clients have helped to establish in Wisconsin Statutes and found to be acceptable.  Sworn election officials will retrieve ballots that have already been issued and will ensure that ballots are properly witnessed and are secured in sealed in absentee ballot envelopes and ballot containers with tamper-evident seals, to be tabulated on Election Day.  The election officials will maintain a chain of custody log that is open to public inspection. No new ballots will be issued in the parks.

Sworn City election inspectors collecting ballots at official drop-off sites will not discriminate against voters, per training, sworn documentation and adherence to large body of state, federal and Constitutional law.
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In other voting news in Dane County Wisconsin, the Fitchburg Common Council passed a resolution 6-2 this week that moves a polling site to a more inclusive and accessible place in the notorious anti-voting rights Dist One, a polling place marked by open racism from white Fitchburg polling workers.

Alds Dorothy Krause and Joe Maldonado and Gabriella Gerhardt worked against anti-voting rights forces all year to accomplish this objective of helping voters cast their ballots.
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A statement from Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl is reproduced below:

Statement of Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl Regarding Democracy in the Park

Friday, September 25, 2020 - 3:29pm

Democracy in the Park is an event created by, planned by, staffed by, and paid for by the City Clerk’s Office.  This event will simply make it easier for residents who have received their requested absentee ballot to drop it off in person.

This is not in-person absentee voting. Poll workers will not be able to issue anyone a ballot at the park. The only way to receive a ballot right now is through the mail. In-person absentee voting begins October 20, and voters will be able to receive and cast an absentee ballot at any of our absentee voting sites at that time.

The poll workers in each City park tomorrow have taken an oath of office. They are the same dedicated public servants who administer elections at your polling place on Election Day.

Absentee voting by mail is underway. Voters may return their absentee ballots by mail, or in person. Our ballot drop boxes are still on order, and voters have been requesting a location close to home where they can deliver their ballot.

By having poll workers receive the delivery of the absentee ballot, we are able to double-check that the voter has completed the certificate envelope so the ballot can be counted at the polls on Election Day.

Voters who want a poll worker to serve as their absentee witness need to bring their ballot and envelope from home, show the blank ballot to the poll worker, mark the ballot in a way that the poll worker cannot see how they are voting, and then seal the ballot in the envelope they received in the mail.

The City Clerk’s Office is non-partisan. Regardless of who people vote for, our goal is that each eligible voter will be able to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted.

Wisconsin Voting Rights Supporters Hit GOP Suppression Action in Madison

Madison, Wisconsin—Wisconsin Republicans have implemented an offensive against voters through the GOP-led Dept. of Transportation's planned closing of two accessible DMV centers that will be consolidated into a new complex sited on the far-west side of the city.

Many voters seeking the Republican-approved photo voter IDs would have to obtain this Republican-prescribed qualification to vote at the relatively inaccessible, new DMV building.

The City of Madison, voting rights groups, and Dane County legislators have all condemned the GOP plan, (Wisconsin State Journal).

The Republican move is part of a long Republican voter obstruction project aimed at suppressing unwanted voters.

Wrote Brook Soltvedt, president, League of Women Voters of Dane County in Madison.com:

Transit-dependent citizens must visit the Division of Motor Vehicles to obtain a Wisconsin ID card for voting.

Who are our most transit-dependent? Students, the elderly and disabled, racial minorities and economically challenged citizens.

A study from the UW–Madison Center for Elections Research showed that about 17,000 registered voters in Dane and Milwaukee counties were deterred from voting in the November 2016 election because they either did not have a valid ID, or believed that they did not have one -- even if they did.

Meanwhile, on the national Republican voter-obstruction front, a federal judge has ordered an end to the 35-year-old consent decree against the Republican National Committee's 'ballot security' activities implemented to intimidate minority citizens from casting votes.

Below is the text of the letter from Dane County legislators to Secretary Dave Ross, Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
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Secretary Dave Ross, Wisconsin Department of Transportation
Hill Farms State Transportation Building
4802 Sheboygan Avenue
Madison, WI 53705

Dear Secretary Ross,

As you know, on January 3, 2018, the City of Madison filed a civil rights complaint against the Wisconsin Department of Transportation over the decision to cease providing Division of Motor Vehicle Services at the Sheboygan Avenue and Odana Road locations and to consolidate those offices in a new location at 8417 Excelsior Drive.  As members of the Madison area legislative delegation, we share the concerns of the City of Madison and urge you to take steps necessary to resolve the issues the city raises in its complaint.

While the Odana Road and Sheboygan Avenue locations are readily accessible by bus, public transit near the proposed Excelsior Drive location is very limited. It is not reasonable to expect a person without a car to spend over two hours for bussing and transfers and up to an hour waiting for the arrival of a bus to take them home. Additionally, most service utilizes a bus stop nearly half a mile away, posing challenges for individuals with disabilities or those traveling with children. Due to the move and consolidation of locations, a simple errand to the DMV could take substantially more time and effort to complete for people residing in neighborhoods predominantly comprised of the elderly, racial minorities, and lower income families.

Additionally, the Excelsior Drive location is not pedestrian or bicycle friendly. Both the Odana Road and Sheboygan Avenue locations are served by a number of safe and accessible routes for pedestrians and bicyclists. However, the Beltline Highway will serve as a barrier for individuals who accessed the former locations on foot or by bicycle.

Given the current state voter ID law, reduced accessibility to the DMV is particularly alarming. In this case, those who lack transportation to get to the new location are likely to be the same individuals who are most likely to be disenfranchised.  For low-income individuals, minorities, and disabled individuals who rely on public transportation, this move will increase barriers to accessing the facility and various DMV services.

As we had similar concerns to those raised by the City of Madison, staff from Representative Subeck’s office contacted your office earlier this fall to inquire about plans for the move and to share our concern that access to services could be diminished because the new facility is underserved by public transportation. Since that time, your office has never been back in touch with us about the move until we received your January 2 press release. Perhaps if the Department had engaged legislators after we contacted your office, the problems raised by the city could have been addressed before now.

We want the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to recognize that the complaint filed by the City of Madison has merit. Corrective measures need to be taken to ensure Madison residents in need of a driver’s license or state identification card do not face unnecessary and sometimes costly barriers.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Lisa Subeck                            Terese Berceau                        Jimmy Anderson
State Representative            State Representative            State Representative
78th Assembly District          77th Assembly District          47th Assembly District

Chris Taylor                            Melissa Sargent                         Fred Risser
State Representative            State Representative            State Senator
76th Assembly District          48th Assembly District          26th Senate District

Mark Miller
State Senator
16th Senate District
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Wisconsin Voter Obstruction Is as Republican as Racism and Corruption

Fitchburg Wisconsin — Wisconsin is regarded by civil rights workers as the worst state to be black and brown in America.

But not only because most white Republicans work to ship minorities into prisons and segregated sectors in Wisconsin's few urban regions of significant populations.

Blacks are targeted at the polls.

Republicans and only Republicans engineered the transformation of Wisconsin election law in an ambitious project to "disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," in the words of Judge Richard Posner of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in a major voting rights case still being litigated, (Mal Contends, Mal Contends, The Progressive).

Among those likely to vote against the Republican Party are the easily identifiable folks of black and brown skin color.

Though nationally the Republicans' obstructive photo voter ID law garnered wide attention, dozens of party-line statutes have been passed by Republicans since 2011, (Ferral, The Capital Times).

The Republican gerrymandering effort intended to stop non-Republicans from using the polling place to safeguard their interests is one major objective of the Republican anti-voting project, (ScotusBlog,  Election Law).

Obstruct Voters Locally

Other Republican initiatives include white poll workers interrogating voters at the polls, and in an escalation of conspicuous hostility the use of expensive civil citations against voting rights activists: Me.

This Summer Mal Contends will litigate two bogus disorderly conduct civil citations issued by the city of Fitchburg, Wisconsin against me.

One citation was written on August 9, 2016, Fall Primary Election Day. This citation will be argued in front of a jury this Summer in Dane County Circuit Court.

A second citation was written on May 10, 2017 alleging even more misconduct on Aug. 9, 2016 and served seconds after the litigation of the first citation in Municipal Court resulted in a judicial ruling of no fine. The presiding Municipal Judge, Hamdy Ezalarab, recused himself from hearing the second citation which will heard at trial on Aug. 3 at 6:00 p.m by a substitute judge

The Fitchburg City Attorney's office, Mark R Sewell and Valerie A. Zisman, is engaged in misconduct and malicious prosecutions, among other violations of ethics which I will pursue in the future.

Stay posted. This may appear light stuff from a small, corrupt Wisconsin city. It's not light stuff. From an email sent by me to the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Aug. 5, 2016, four days before I was obstructed from voting on Aug 9, received the first two of four visits to our home by armed Fitchburg Police, and received the first of now two civil disorderly conduct citations:

From: Mike Leon [ ...]
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2016 8:42 AM
To: Lowe, Diane - ELECTIONS
Subject: Polling Place
Importance: High

Diane,

Could you email me a URL or GAB (WEC) memo that would indicate how many election inspectors are supposed to hand out ballots at a table in a polling place? I believe it to be two.

A ... chief election inspector in our polling place, where I worked on April 5, positioned one election inspector at the ballots table, and predictably quite a voter bottleneck ensued.

Other elections to my memory featured two inspectors on ballots.

I need a memo or other publicly available authority on this two-people-on-ballots question.

I emailed our election and city clerk, around late April on this but no one got back to me. They are not too crazy about questions RE what they regard as their apparent turf, though I believe myself as a resident and long-time election inspector to be a stakeholder.

Administering elections should be about rules and regulations, to my view.

Mike
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Republican Voter Suppression in Wisconsin Hits Voter Turnout

Madison, Wisconsin — From Republican poll workers, hostile municipal clerks to the Republicans' transformation of "Wisconsin election law," (One Wisconsin Now. v. Thomsen, (p.2)), Republicans worked every angle to obstruct voters and suppress voter turnout.

The years-long voter suppression project continues.

The results are impressive.

Wisconsin traditionally has the highest or near the highest voter turnout.

From Matthew DeFour in the Wisconsin State Journal, (Madison):

Wisconsin’s voter turnout in the November presidential ... declined the second-most from 2012, according to a new report by Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project. 

The ongoing effort by Republicans at the local polling place targets minority and young voters systemically, to be treated with disrespect and hostility. [This Latino writer, working as a poll worker in 2016, pointed out the voter obstruction effort repeatedly since 2011. The response is hostile city of Fitchburg, Wisconsin officials called the police after an August 2016 phone call and contrived a bogus disorderly conduct citation now being adjudicated in municipal court. Resolution is expected in May.]

As a 10-year-plus election inspector, I can tell you this anti-democratic dynamic is widespread and growing.

The anti-democratic phenomenon is the result of the Republican Party changing election laws to usurp control of the voting place, but is difficult to measure in social scientific research such as Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project's.

Most people are not aware there are phone numbers and election officials whom one can contact after witnessing or experiencing voter obstruction.

Illumination of this misconduct depends on poll workers and voters recognizing a hostile polling place is illegal and then speaking up. If you speak up, in accordance with the Wisconsin Elections Commission's advice, you run the risk of a bogus disorderly conduct citation.

This is voting in Wisconsin today.

Voting Is Your Right, No Matter What Racists and Republicans Say

If you see voter obstruction, help your fellow voters

Wisconsin Republicans creating a hostile and obstructive voting regime at Wisconsin's 3,500 polling places is a scheme the GOP hopes bears fruit on Election Day. It's not just poll observes who want to obstruct your vote, it's poll workers.

After-all, Republicans seek to turn every lever of state and municipal government into de facto sub-units of Republican government. So, screening poll workers for hostility to voting rights and in the process taking over the voting place are naturals for voting-averse Republicans.

Antagonistic-to-voters polling workers are pervasive, but compiling reports of their misconduct is difficult for non-profits. (It takes a major social-scientific investigation to quantify the phenomenon of voter obstruction.)

Instead we see warnings about election observers and voter obstruction laws omitting the misconduct of municipal and contract election officials stationed at the point of voting and working, (unlawfully), to suppress the vote.

All of this is carried out under the rubric of voter fraud, a lie, and hostility to civil liberties, a disgrace.

Concludes a New York Times editorial in September: "The scary thing is how many Americans have bought into this charade [about voter fraud]. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has elevated the lie about voting fraud and 'rigged elections' to a centerpiece of his campaign."

It shouldn't be surprising. Alex Wagner has a compelling report out about the dangers Donald Trump poses to voting.

The rotten fruit of the now Trumped-up danger of voter fraud is right at your local polling place, abetted by observers, polling workers and municipal bureaucrats.

Stay vigilant, especially if you are brown or black.

Fight Against Republican Voter Obstruction Continues

Fighting Republican efforts to "to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," (Richard Posner, Frank v. Walker).

Since 2011 Wisconsin Republicans have engineered mandatory photo voter ID and dozens of other election laws to obstruct as many non-Republican voters as possible.

This is an imperfect method of voter obstruction, but one which demonstrably is used to suppress the total number of voters likely to cast non-Republican votes.

Voting rights advocates are pursuing many actions against Republican voter obstruction laws enacted across the country by Republican-led states to achieve desired electoral outcomes for a favored political party, the Republican Party.

One action pursued by voting rights workers is in the federal court system, in which voting rights attorneys make legal claims under the Fourteenth Amendment and Section Two of the Voting Rights Act.

North Carolina

On June 21 in North Carolina, a federal judicial panel in the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, heard oral argument in North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP; Emanuel Baptist Church; Covenant Presbyterian Chruch; Barbee Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, Inc.; Rosanell Eaton; Armentia Eaton; Carolyn Coleman; Jocelyn Ferguson-Kelly; Faith Jackson; Mary Perry; and Maria Teresa Unger Palmer v. Patrick Lloyd McCrory, et al (2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55712).

The voting rights plaintiffs challenge North Carolina's Republican-enacted voter suppression law, North Carolina House Bill 589 (2013), a comprehensive voter obstruction effort composed of many of the voter obstruction initiatives used in Wisconsin, Texas and other Republican-led states.

The North Carolina case is fast-tracked.

Gov. McCrory is an anti-voting rights Republican governor working to stop minority and college-aged voters from voting in an effort to consolidate Republican political control of North Carolina.

Voting rights advocates are watching North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v.
Patrick Lloyd McCrory to gauge the federal courts' inclination to uphold Fourteenth Amendment claims of liberty and Due Process against incursions by Republican-led states.

North Carolina has a sordid and violent racist history of lynchings, beatings, Jim Crow laws and other liberty-destroying practices aimed at black citizens which leave minority populations particularly vulnerable to voter obstruction efforts.

Now, Latinos and college-aged voters join blacks in being targeted for exclusion from voting by Republican voter obstruction laws in North Carolina.

Anna Baldwin, an attorney with the Voting Section, Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Dept of Justice, argued on June 21 the "cumulative" consequence of numerous North Carolina Republican voter obstruction provisions has both the intent and effect of obstruction of minority and college-aged voters in North Carolina.

Other voting rights attorneys arguing the case, (16-1468), before the federal panel include Penda Hair and Allison Riggs who spoke to the discriminatory intent and effect of North Carolina's voter obstruction law.

Three voting rights cases were ordered consolidated for trial in 2015: North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory; League of Women Voters v. North Carolina and United States of America v. North Carolina.

Earlier this year Republican U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder allowed the North Carolina obstruction laws to take effect.

The federal panel hearing the case is composed of federal judges: Diana Gribbon Motz, James A. Wynn Jr., and Henry F. Floyd.

Wisconsin cases before the federal courts are One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)) and Frank v. Walker.

As with North Carolina, Wisconsin Republicans are hostile to minority and college-aged citizens who vote against Republicans.

Daily Cardinal: Voter Registration Declines with Election Law Changes

Wisconsin Republicans are sowing confusion and suppression of voters.

Andrew Bahl and Miller Jozwiak at the Daily Cardinal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have the story.

Worth noting is the Republican-enacted changing of the fall state primary from September to early August, on a party-line vote.

In Madison and many college campuses, heavy student moving occurs from mid-August to late August.

Scott Walker, Wisconsin Republicans Exposed as Frauds at Voting Rights Trial

A long-time and now-ex Fitchburg, Wisconsin chief election inspector voted in the Wisconsin Spring Election and Presidential Preference election held on April 5, 2016.

Al Potts resigned from the contract position because he wanted no part of perpetuating a fraud on voters through the imposition of Scott Walker and the Republicans' photo voter ID law because the law is intended to suppress voters and render voting as burdensome a process as possible, (Woodward Communications, Inc.).

After exchanging pleasantries with his former colleagues on April 5, Potts had to produce an acceptable photo voter ID to prove he really was Al Potts, a political moderate active in municipal and civic politics, but publicly apolitical in state and national politics.

Potts and voting rights advocates have been proven correct in their assessment of the Republican-enacted law which was found constitutional by Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in February 2104, and in federal court where a challenge to the law failed on a five-to-five vote at the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in late 2104, (Sommerhauser, WISC-TV), (Mal Contends).

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition to grant cert challenging the constitutionality of Wisconsin's voter ID law as a qualification to vote in March 2015, (USA Today).

A federal trial that began May 16, 2106, (One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol), for the first time introduces evidence of the intent of Republicans to use photo voter ID to block voters by citing the words of Republican legislators, particularly citing voiced intent to frustrate and destroy the vote in "Milwaukee" and on "college campuses" to help win elections for Republicans, (Sneed, TPM; Opoien, The Capital Times).

A motion to hear testimony, evidence and exhibits citing the public and private words of Republican lawmakers to use the voter ID law to win elections by blocking disfavored voters was granted by U.S. District Judge James Peterson on May 13.

On May 16, testimony by one witness, former Republican staffer Todd Allbaugh, offered what appears to be just the beginning of devastating evidence against Wisconsin Republicans' illegal and outlandish intent at the trial.

Al Potts joins voting rights activists, and Judge Richard Posner of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in sounding the alarm about Wisconsin Republicans' destroying votes in Republicans' "efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," (Posner, Frank v. Walker).

The bench trial is scheduled to end on Thursday, May 26, 2016, (One Wisconsin Institute, Inc., et al v. Nichol, et al, p.1).

Wisconsin Voting Rights Trial: Ex-GOP Staffer Names Republican Senators Who Cheered Voter Suppression

"The former staffer to a Wisconsin state Republican senator who went public last month with accusations that the state's voter ID law was passed by GOPers looking for a political advantage elaborated on the claims in federal court Monday and identified the previously unnamed legislators he said were gleeful over the law."

Todd Allbaugh, testifying in a case challenging the law, named then-Sens. Mary Lazich, Glenn Grothman, Leah Vukmir and Randy Hopper as being 'giddy' in a 2011 private caucus meeting about passing the bill," (Journal Sentinel), reports Tierney Sneed, TPM. See also Opoien, The Capital Times.

The expected two-week trial, (One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)), began today and is expected to focus attention on Republican Party efforts to suppress as many perceived non-Republican voters as possible through a variety of changes to election law, supported by Republicans and only Republicans against unanimous Democratic Party and voting rights activists' opposition.

Though national political chatter often speaks of a crack in Republican Party unity, stopping non-Republican voters from voting is universally acclaimed, and supporting voting suppression is part of the price of admission to Republican politics.

U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson is presiding over the One Wisconsin bench trial.

The Democratic Party remains the party of voting rights, not a particularly popular position in the American political culture.

Earlier this month, Wisconsin's Democratic congressional delegation requested a U.S. DoJ review of the Wisconsin Voter ID law and other voter suppression tactics enacted into law by Wisconsin Republicans since 2011, (Mal Contends).

Sensenbrenner Still Scamming Wisconsin on Photo Voter ID Obstruction

Update: Seventh Circuit panel sends back Frank v. Walker (No. 15-3532) to Judge Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Report Patrick Marley and Jason Stein:

Madison attorney Lester Pines said Tuesday's ruling could lead to a victory for a small subset of voters.

'The 7th Circuit has found that the district court has to allow for the presentation of evidence about the hurdles that some people have to obtaining photo ID that actually keep people from voting,' said Pines, who is not involved in this case but represented the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in a separate challenge against the law in state court. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Another Wisconsin voting rights case, One Wisconsin Institute, et al v. Nichol, et al (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)) is expected to go trial in May or June 2106.

See also Lueders, The Progressive, on Republican efforts to keep away the wrong people from the polls.
 ---
U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is continuing his charade he is a champion of the Voting Rights Act eviscerated by the then Republican-led U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder in 2103.

Sensenbrenner's bill to restore the Voting Rights Act is a ruse, and the latest to apparently fall for the con is The Capital Times' Dave Zweifel. Not good, but Zweifel is in good company.

Sensenbrenner penned a New York Times op-ed piece on March 31, 2016 saying he is appalled by Shelby County and acclaiming himself a voting rights champion, the later lie fed since as early as 2009 to Diana Marrero of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Let's look closer at the 2015-16 Voting Rights Amendment Act authored by Sensenbrenner, and his history.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act specifically protects the Republican Party's most important voter obstruction weapon—the restrictive photo voter ID law used by Republican-led states to obstruct the wrong kind of voters from casting their preference at the ballot bin/machine.

Reads Sensenbrenner's 2015-16 bill in the Congressional summary:

Excludes from the list of violations triggering jurisdiction retention authority any voting qualification or prerequisite which results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote that is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in a federal, state, or local election. (emphasis added)

Photo Voter ID has been exposed for what it is, a scheme to obstruct people from the polls who are likely to not vote Republican. See Judge Richard Posner's extraordinary 2014 "On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc" in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Wisconsin photo voter ID bill; (Posner, Frank v. Walker), (Mal Contends), (Brad Friedman) ( Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times).

Judge Richard Posner's extraordinary
2014 On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc, (p. 17).
Suggestion failed five to five, green-lighting
Wisconsin's photo voter ID law after the U.S.
Supreme Court failed to grant cert. Since 2014,
strict photo ID laws have spread even more.

So why would a Congressman who says he cares about voting rights protect state voter obstruction? Because that congressman, James Sensenbrenner, is a liar.

Civil rights activists, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have supported Sensenbrenner's iterations of his bill in the past, hoping, I am told by a civil rights activist, the photo voter ID language would be amended out.

Sure, that's going to happen under Republican House leadership.

Said Sensenbrenner in 2014 in a townhall meeting in Rubicon, Wisconsin in his district: "The good part about the Voting Rights Act modernization is that I got a provision in there that basically gets Eric Holder out of going after photo ID laws," the 18-term Badger State congressman claims on the undercover video, (National Review), (James O'Keefe).

Sensenbrenner's posturing in the New York Times that he is risking his his lilly-white and segregated congressional seat is ludicrous.

Sensenbrenner's also said in 2104, "I hope the president vetoes the bill. ...  If the president vetoes—well, let me rephrase that – if the president vetoes this bill, he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has," (Roth, MSNBC), (James O'Keefe).

Why would a champion of the Voting Rights Act want the U.S. DoJ to not retain any jurisdiction over states' voter obstruction?

Sensenbrenner Defends Texas and Wisconsin's Voter Obstruction

If Sensenbrenner's duplicity were not sufficiently clear, consider as well Sensenbrenner's outspoken support for two of the nation's most restrictive photo voter ID laws in Texas and Wisconsin.

Sensenbrenner, one of the few serving in Congress who opposed the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, had this to say about Texas' vile photo voter ID law in 2103:

"I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act. The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect," (Mal Contends).

As noted in these pages, there are of course serious efforts to protect voting: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment. Sensenbrenner supporting this mega-voting rights guarantee, and going against his Party's voter obstruction project is as likely as Sarah Palin winning a Nobel Prize in physics.

Sensenbrenner said Republican voter obstruction efforts such as Wisconsin's, are "common-sense efforts to ensure the identity and citizenship of voters," (July 2012) (Mal Contends).

More Sensenbrenner Mendacity

There's more Sensenbrenner lies and hypocrisies of course, too many to list.

For example as noted here, Sensenbrenner's Wisconsin colleague in the House, Mark Pocan (D-Madison), specifically called out Republicans in Wisconsin and other states for obstructing voters in 2103.

Sensenbrenner should join Pocan.

Pocan has introduced a Constitutional amendment that would guarantee citizens' right to vote, protecting Americans against the ever-changing voter obstruction efforts now plaguing our nation, and committed by one political party—the Republican Party.

Pocan's amendment would also change the balance of power -- by altering the legal calculus for showing voters' rights are violated -- in favor of voters. As Pocan said, "There is no explicit right to vote in the Constitution. If we had an explicit right to vote, any state that passes a law that makes it harder to vote would have to prove that they’re not harming someone’s ability to vote rather than the opposite. Right now a person has to prove that they’ve been harmed by a state law. And it really changes the burden of proof on those states that pass these laws that really make it harder for people to vote," (Mal Contends).

Sensenbrenner refuses to join Pocan, both in condemning voter obstruction at the state level, and in refusing to support Pocan's proposed Right-to-Vote constitutional amendment.

Instead, Sensenbrenner toes the GOP line on state Republican voter obstruction efforts, to repeat, calling the obstruction, "common-sense efforts to ensure the identity and citizenship of voters," (July 2012).

What Sensenbrenner is pursuing is a cynical inside/out con game in which Sensenbrenner takes no political risks in appearing to seek to repair the eviscerated Voting Rights Act, while supporting Republican voter obstruction efforts on the state level.

One hopes this anti-American effort to obstruct the vote is stopped in its tracks, and Sensenbrenner's deplorable hypocrisy is revealed.

As for Shelby, the Supreme Court will reverse this clearly untenable decision, explaining in part why the Republican Senate is working so ferociously against Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, (White House).

Veteran Wisconsin Election Inspector Resigns, Cites Voter ID

Al Potts of Fitchburg,Wisconsin - Resigned chief
election inspector position because of Wisconsin's voter
photo ID law that obstructs voters from voting.
Photo Credit: Potts family

Updated - A veteran election inspector, Al Potts of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, said partisan-inspired changes to Wisconsin election law in the last five years caused him to call it quits before the presidential primary.

“I won’t help perpetuate a fraud on voters," said Potts.

The Fitchburg Star has the story.

Potts has it right.

Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo reports today:

A former top staffer for a Republican legislator in Wisconsin suggested this week that GOP legislators were motivated to pass the state’s tough photo voter ID law because they believed it would help them at the ballot box, an account he expanded on in a Wednesday interview with TPM.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz (R) until the legislator retired in 2015, first made the claims in a Tuesday Facebook post that caught the attention of national voting rights experts.

In the post, Allbaugh recalled a 2011 caucus meeting of GOP state senators about the voter ID legislation. Allbaugh said during that meeting, some Republicans were 'giddy' over the legislation's "ramifications" and the effect it would have on minority and young voters.

Once he left politics, Allbaugh opened a Madison, Wisconsin coffee shop, where TPM reached him over the phone and he elaborated on those claims.

'It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, "We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us,'" Allbaugh said. 'The phrase ‘voter suppression’ was never used, but it was certainly clear what was meant.'

While Schultz, Allbaugh’s former boss, has notably spoken outagainst more recent restrictions on voting, he voted for the 2011 bill. According to Allbaugh, at this point in the point of meeting, Schultz brought up his own concerns with the voter ID legislation.

'He was immediately shot down by another senator who said, ‘What I am interested in is getting results here and using the power while we have it, because if the Democrats were in control they would do they same thing to us, so I want to use it while we have it,'” Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said Schultz left the meeting in frustration after that, while he stayed behind to continue taking notes.

'It left a pit in my stomach to think that a party that I had worked for for years and years and years was literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right,' Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh told TPM he was stirred to write the initial Facebook post after one of his young employees, who had moved from California to Wisconsin, was unable to vote Tuesday. Albaugh said that because the employee's California ID did not meet the state’s requirements to vote, he was told he needed to show his California birth certificate, which the employee was not going to be able to produce in time.

'When you see the real world ramification, it just sickens you,' Allbaugh said. 'I have to tell people what’s going on.'

Schultz was asked about Allbaugh’s Facebook post on Wednesday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Meanwhile the Republican Wisconsin DoJ is busily defending the voter photo ID law in U.S. appellate court in Frank v. Walker, (Wisconsin DoJ).

Reads a Wisconsin DoJ press release in part dated this morning:

The Wisconsin Department of Justice will argue today in front of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case of Frank v. Walker to uphold Wisconsin’s Voter ID law. ...

[T]he Seventh Circuit will decide if Wisconsin’s Voter ID law holds up against the plaintiffs’ new, narrower challenge.  The plaintiffs claim that this narrower challenge is not new because they had asserted these claims in their arguments in the original Frank v. Walker.  The Attorney General argues that this is not true and that the plaintiffs’ narrower challenge consists of new claims which the plaintiffs are not allowed to raise after the Seventh Circuit’s final decision in 2014. Even if plaintiffs are allowed to raise these claims, Wisconsin’s law is still constitutional under Crawford and the original Frank v. Walker decision.

Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin will make these arguments to a panel of three judges from the Seventh Circuit.

Stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is a project Wisconsin Republicans will see to its completion, if not acceptance from the Wisconsin people.

Wisconsin Moves into Focus of Presidential Campaigns

On April 5 the Republican Party of Wisconsin will get a
glimpse of how well its voter suppression objectives
have been achieved in the first Wisconsin statewide,
presidential election that conditions the right to vote on
possessing and presenting a Republican-approved photo ID,
(Pierce, Esquire).

Projected Wisconsin April 5 Primary Turnout Expected to Exceed the 2008 Primary Turnout

Wisconsin moves into the spotlight as the April 5 partisan primaries reveal a radicalized Republican Party opposed by two wings of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW)—the progressive wing and the corporatist wing.

Steve Kornacki guest-hosting The Rachel Maddow Show Thursday led with a 13-minute segment offering a historical perspective of Wisconsin's progressive history, Robert La Follette and the statist reactionaries, (my words) such as Joe McCarthy and Scott Walker.

Kornacki interviewed Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel journalist, Mary Spicuzza about Wisconsin's surprise prominence as a potential tipping point in the presidential primary races of both major political parties in the 2015-16 election cycle.

Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (GAB) this week predicted voter turnout for the April 5 election could be as high as 40 percent, (Beckett, Wisconsin Radio Network).

In the historic Feb. 19, 2008 primary, the turnout was 37.1 percent, according to the United States Elections Project. This figure is a couple points higher than the official Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board's figure of the 2008 Presidential Primary turnout as 34.9 percent.

Although Wisconsin is generally thought of a 'purple' state, the Republican Party of Wisconsin has veered into openly advocating the tenets of fascism the last five years.

The Democratic Party to the extent it is guided by grassroots citizens' groups still traces back a political tradition to La Follette, Milwaukee's sewer socialists, labor union activism, and a scholarship to study labor history as exemplified by University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons in the early 20th century, (Birth of the Labor Movement, Wisconsin Historical Society).

Contra progressive citizens' movements, corporatist political forces in the Democratic Party today as embodied in U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) and Hillary Clinton have led the DPW to abandon fundamentals of Party organizing, grassroots organizing and establishing the Party as an effective counter to the historic political successes of Scott Walker and the gerrymandered, Republican-led Wisconsin legislature, (Murphy, Urban Milwaukee).

.

Republican Party's War on Voting to Reap Wisconsin Casualties on April 5

On April 5, the Republican Party of Wisconsin will get a glimpse of how well its voter suppression objectives have been achieved in the first Wisconsin statewide, presidential election that conditions the right to vote on possessing and presenting a Republican-approved photo ID, (Pierce, Esquire).

Wisconsin will hold its Spring Election and Presidential Preference Primary on April 5.

Suppressing the number of communities of color, disabled, early in-person absentee voters, low-income voters, young people, and the elderly will yield high dividends in the Fall General Election on November 8, Republicans hope.

"It's going to be much worse this November, and probably worse every other November after that until we decide that none of these things is merely accidental, and that none of these episodes is merely a clerical or administrative error. They are the result of a deliberate national campaign to restrict the franchise in new and different ways, all of which devalue our democracy, and all of them a shame to our national honor," notes Charlie Pierce.

That Wisconsin Republicans failed to fund a mandated-by-law public education campaign is just a happy coincidence for the GOP, (Smith, ProPublica). 

A long-time Election Inspector in Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Dane County) told me he would not "perpetuate a fraud" on voters by collaborating with the Republican-passed Photo Voter ID law regime which will obstruct and prevent targeted voters from casting their preference on Election Day.

The polling worker has worked elections for decades, but is finished working the polls, what he sees as a solemn, civic duty. "In-person voter-impersonation fraud is the fraud," he said.

In the 2014 federal court decision and order that halted (temporarily) implementation of Wisconsin's photo voter ID law, Republicans in the Attorney General's office, Judge Lynn Adelman notes, "could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past," (p. 12).

Wisconsin typically has been near the top in voter turn-outs in general presidential elections, (2008 at 72.8) (2012 at 72.9 percent).

Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans are aware of these facts, and have worked diligently to lower turn-out, especially that 'urban' vote.

The GOP stops enough 'urban' people voting, and its candidates may win in November, though the Republican brand has become some so tainted by misconduct and incompetence, winning a statewide race is a presidential year is a difficult proposition, no matter how many election law changes Republicans have enacted to give Republicans an advantage against the Wisconsin citizenry.

Wisconsin Photo Voter ID Suit Filing Details DMV Refusals of Voters

There is one federal challenge to the Republican-passed photo voter obstruction law in Wisconsin and the Republican effort to roll back voting rights.

The challenge is One Wisconsin Inst., Inc. v. Nichol, (2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107781).

One Wisconsin v. Nichol was advanced in a December 2015 ruling by U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson who rejected a motion to dismiss by members and staff of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board acting in their titular capacity.

Concluded Judge Nichol in his December 2015 opinion, " ... it is also true that when a state regulation subjects voters' rights 'to 'severe' restrictions, the regulation must be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance.' Id. at 434 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). As defendants concede in their reply, the Equal Protection Clause is the mechanism through which to guard against such impermissible restrictions."

Today, One Wisconsin Now announced a new filing detailing severe state restrictions to voting, restrictions that destroy the right to vote of Wisconsin citizens.

The filing concerns Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles stopping or severely impeding Wisconsin voters from obtaining the necessary photo voter ID that is a precondition to vote.

This filing describes the consequences warned about by voting rights activists when the Scott Walker's administration in 2011 instructed the Wisconsin Department of Transportation head to direct DMV employees "to refrain from actively informing the public about the ability to receive a free identification card for the purposes of voting," (Nichols, The Capital Times).

An injunction motion after Wisconsin's April 5 presidential primary appears likely.

The One Wisconsin Now press release is reproduced below:

New Filing in Voter Rights Lawsuit Exposes Serious Flaws at DMV Providing Voters With IDs,
Erroneous Denials and Bureaucratic Bumbling Taking the Franchise Away From Legal Voters

Madison, Wisconsin — A new filing in a lawsuit brought by One Wisconsin Institute and other voter rights advocates exposes serious flaws at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the process for providing Wisconsinites with the ID that voters must now produce to cast their ballot at the polls. As part of the voter ID law adopted by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican controlled legislature, individuals are ostensibly able to request a free identification card from the DMV under certain circumstances. But bureaucratic delays and improper denials are preventing otherwise legal voters from obtaining the ID now required to vote.

“There has been a comprehensive, systematic effort in Wisconsin to make voting harder and more complicated for targeted populations by Republican politicians attempting to gain an unfair partisan advantage,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Institute Executive Director. “The documented failures of the DMV to provide legal voters with the ID they now need to exercise their right to vote is yet another sad episode in the assault on democracy underway in Wisconsin.”

The suit, filed in federal court in Madison, outlines more than a dozen policies that have made voting in Wisconsin more challenging for eligible citizens and seeks to strike down various restrictive voting measures put in place by Governor Scott Walker and the Republican State Legislature since 2011.

The latest filing by the plaintiffs notes that in the state voter ID case, the state supreme court held that the DMV had to exercise its discretion under the “extraordinary proof” petition process to permit voters to obtain exemptions for having to pay for birth certificates or other government records needed to obtain voter ID. An analysis of this process and numerous examples shows how this process is resulting in otherwise legal voters being denied the opportunity to exercise their right to vote.

An internal DMV analysis found an error rate of 27 percent, meaning more than one in four petitions to obtain a voter ID under the extraordinary proof process were mishandled between March and August of 2015. The agency admits numerous instances of petitions being suspended because a person gave up in anger or frustration.

And the problem is expected to get worse. The DMV is expecting increased demand for voter IDs this year due to the presidential election and already reports a backlog of dozens of “open” petitions, has cut back on staff, and has no extra staff or budget allocated to deal with the expected increased demand.

The filing includes several examples of how the DMV process is broken, resulting in eligible individuals being denied IDs, and therefore their right to vote, including:

•  Refusing to provide an ID to a woman who had lost the use of her hands and couldn’t sign an application. The woman brought her daughter with her to sign the application and even provided her daughter with power of attorney giving her permission to sign, but the DMV did not allow it;
• Denying the petitions of many eligible voters because of minor discrepancies in the spelling of their names or uncertainties about their exact dates of birth—even though DMV acknowledges it has no doubts these disenfranchised voters are U.S. citizens;
•  “Turning away” a senior citizen who had been ‘born in a concentration camp in Germany,’ and his German birth certificate had been lost in a fire. That citizen was ultimately granted an ID, but only after extraordinary effort on his behalf to comply with absurd demands by the DMV.

Ross concluded, “When the DMV erroneously denies someone an ID or their incompetence and bureaucratic delays result in a person giving up in anger or frustration, they are denying a legal voter their right to vote. And that is unacceptable.”
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