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
#

Republicans Got What They Want in Wisc DMV Clerks Deciding Who Votes; Fight's Not Over

Thank you Ruthelle Frank and Eddie Lee Holloway Jr.
for sticking up for our rights in 2011 and beyond, (ACLU)

Wisconsin Republicans frustrated, confused and blocked voters: Mission Accomplished

Wisconsin is better than North Carolina in voting rights, but that's nothing to brag about.

For the some 300,000 registered voters without a Republican-approved voting ID, Wisconsin voting rights activists face a situation where DMV clerks, intrepid students of the Constitution, are making value decisions about who gets to vote.

The result and Republican Party objective is voter confusion, frustration and obstruction.

Writes EPWisco this weekend: "We hope DMV now following correct rules - u should be able to get ID w/whatever docs u have. Let us and @VoteRiders @votermolly know [if] u can't[.]"

From February 2015, consider the unthinkable state of affairs (also seen from 2011) we face today, we did not get here by accident:

[from 2015] If Republicans and Scott Walker get their way, [they did], DMV clerks will make the decision on whether 10,000s of Wisconsin citizens get to vote, exercising the clerks' "discretion in a constitutionally sufficient manner." [Frank v. Walker, p.36]

Election law expert, Rick Hasen [in 2015], says Wisconsin voting right activists make a persuasive case for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Wisconsin photo voter ID case, Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) of Wisconsin v. Barland.

Hasen notes the timing and disposition of the Wisconsin voting rights case facing the U.S. presidential elections next year, and the five-to-five split of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit pitting Judge Easterbrook's opinion with Judge Richard Posner's.

"This case comes to the Court with an extensive trial record, an exhaustive district court decision, and a pair of diametrically opposed Seventh Circuit opinions by Judges Easterbrook and Posner." [p.11 of 2015 Reply Brief]

If the Supreme Court does not grant cert, the GOP-passed bill signed into law by Scott Walker would become effective.

From Wisconsin voting rights activists' Reply Brief filed [in 2015]:

...The district court identified other problems with the saving construction [by the Wisconsin Supreme Court]. A voter applying for photo ID “must still provide ‘[w]hatever documentation is available which states the person’s name and date of birth,’ and then the [DMV] administrator, in his or her discretion, may accept or reject ‘such extraordinary proof of name and date of birth.’” App. 197a (quoting Wis. Admin. Code § Trans. 102.15(3)(b), (c)). To guide DMV clerks, the Wisconsin Supreme Court offered this cryptic instruction: ‘the administrator, or his or her designee, shall exercise his or her discretion in a constitutionally sufficient manner.’” Id. (quoting NAAC, 851 N.W.2d at 279). It is unthinkable that the right to vote could depend on the “constitutionally sufficient” exercise of discretion by a DMV clerk. See Louisiana v. United States, 380 U.S. 145, 153 (1965) (voting rights “cannot be obliterated by the use of laws ... which leave the voting fate of a citizen to the passing whim or impulse of an individual registrar”).  [p. 14]

Repulsive work by Republicans and bureaucrats.

Voting Rights Advocates: "Unthinkable" DMV Clerks Decide Constitutionality of Voters

If Republicans and Scott Walker get their way, DMV clerks will make the decision on whether 10,000s of Wisconsin citizens get to vote, exercising the clerks' "discretion in a constitutionally sufficient manner." [Frank v. Walker, p.36]

Election law expert, Rick Hasen, says Wisconsin voting right activists make a persuasive case for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Wisconsin photo voter ID case, Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) of Wisconsin v. Barland.

Hasen notes the timing and disposition of the Wisconsin voting rights case facing the U.S. presidential elections next year, and the five-to-five split of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit pitting Judge Easterbrook's opinion with Judge Richard Posner's.

"This case comes to the Court with an extensive trial record, an exhaustive district court decision, and a pair of diametrically opposed Seventh Circuit opinions by Judges Easterbrook and Posner." [p.11 of Reply Brief]

If the Supreme Court does not grant cert, the GOP-passed bill signed into law by Scott Walker would become effective.

From Wisconsin voting rights activists' Reply Brief filed today:

...The district court identified other problems with the saving construction [by the Wisconsin Supreme Court]. A voter applying for photo ID “must still provide ‘[w]hatever documentation is available which states the person’s name and date of birth,’ and then the [DMV] administrator, in his or her discretion, may accept or reject ‘such extraordinary proof of name and date of birth.’” App. 197a (quoting Wis. Admin. Code § Trans. 102.15(3)(b), (c)). To guide DMV clerks, the Wisconsin Supreme Court offered “this cryptic instruction: ‘the administrator, or his or her designee, shall exercise his or her discretion in a constitutionally sufficient manner.’” Id. (quoting NAAC, 851 N.W.2d at 279). It is unthinkable that the right to vote could depend on the “constitutionally sufficient” exercise of discretion by a DMV clerk. See Louisiana v. United States, 380 U.S. 145, 153 (1965) (voting rights “cannot be obliterated by the use of laws ... which leave the voting fate of a citizen to the passing whim or impulse of an individual registrar”).  [p. 14]

Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Derided by Election Law Expert as "Disingenuous"

Update: Counting on Wisconsin citizens to not stay current as Republican judges and Scott Walker play with their voting rights, stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is a bone fide movement of the Republican Party.

"For reasons I’ve flagged here, implementing voter id in Wisconsin at the last minute is likely to cause electoral chaos—a point which should be compelling regardless of where you stand on the actual merits of WI implementing its voter id law in an organized way," notes Rick Hasen's latest.
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Rick Hasen is a rigorous election law scholar whom most Americans perhaps find boring.

But after the release of the opinions [five-to-five] of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denying the motion to restore the status quo of the injunction (or blocking) of Wisconsin's Voter ID law, Hasen let lose with a word not normally associated with a federal appellate court: Disingenuous.

Check Hasen's piece out.

The truth of the matter is the formal structures of our democracy are imperiled, along with the substantive functioning.

See also In Wisconsin, a Push for Voter ID Law, But Not Voter IDs. (Fischer, PRWatch)

The Judiciary no longer should be accorded any more respect than a corrupt Chicago alder from the 1960s.

The only problem is that hacks like Judge Rudolph Randa and the goons on the Seventh Circuit rule with the force of law.

Federal Intervention to Protect Voting in Wisconsin

Bending Toward Justice, The Voting Rights Act
and the Transformation of American
Democracy (Gary May. Basic Books; 2013)

Wisconsin Republicans facing demographic changes open new fronts in their war to determine who gets to vote

Updated—Alabama, Arizona and Kansas moved ahead with a new qualification for voters—"concrete proof of citizenship," representing an escalation of the Republican Party's efforts to obstruct American voters.

As other Republican state efforts to obstruct voters continue, the federal response is being contemplated as the formal structures of this democracy are under assault at the state level by one political party. Wisconsin is leading the way.

The Republican voter obstruction effort is a years-long project to stop as many non-GOP voters as possible from voting, and the battleground is the states where Republicans have control of both the legislature and governor's office.

In February 2012, attorney Ernest A. Canning argued for U.S. Dept. of Justice intervention in Wisconsin based on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, referring to a legal challenge to Wisconsin's photo voter ID law.

The case is League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin v. Deininger (Case 2:12-cv-00185), now under deliberation after a November 2013 trial that saw a mountain of social scientific evidence of discrimination presented against Wisconsin Act 23, a restrictive photo voter ID law. See also Frank v. Walker, (Case 11cv1128), a case held at trial with League.

An observer said the trial was a rout for pro-voting rights advocates, the consensus opinion.

Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the opinion for the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board later affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2008, said in October last year that the judiciary requires "data" and "empirical evidence," both in adjudication and on the consequences of its decisions and opinions.

"I plead guilty to having written the majority opinion (affirmed by the Supreme Court) upholding Indiana’s requirement that prospective voters prove their identity with a photo ID—a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention," said Posner.

This evidence is now available, especially from the Wisconsin trial, and it suggests a crisis of democracy demanding both a judicial and federal executive branch response.

"The credible evidence convincingly proved that Act 23 will impose harsh and widespread burdens on voters. Virtually all of the factual testimony - of Plaintiffs, other voters, non-parties who provide assistance to voters, as well as Defendants and state employees called adversely by  Plaintiffs - went essentially unchallenged by Defendants. All this evidence compels one conclusion:  Act 23 violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA"), 42 U.S.C. 1973, and the Fourteenth and Twenty -Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and must be enjoined," reads a Frank v. Walker Post-trial brief challenging Wisconsin Voter ID Law. Act 23—passed with unanimous GOP support, unanimous Democratic opposition and unanimous opposition from civil rights and voting rights citizen groups.

The GOP's effort to hold down minority voting participation is the "largest legislative effort to roll back voting rights since the post-Reconstruction era," as characterized by Judith Browne Dianis, a civil rights litigator at The Advancement Project.

On March 19, 2014, a "federal court decided Kobach v. United States Election Assistance Commission. The upshot of this opinion, if it stands on appeal, is that states with Republican legislatures and/or Republican chief election officials are likely to require documentary proof of citizenship," reports Rick Hasen.

That case looks weak. But with Federalist Society jurists sprinkled throughout the judiciary, who can say?

On the state level Wisconsin and Ohio are another front of the war on voting.

Since 2011, "Scott Walker and his right-wing Wisconsin GOP legislative lieutenants - - for the second time since their ascendancy in 2011- - have passed legislation to cut the hours of in-person absentee voting," reports Jim Rowen. "The desired outcome - - abetted by the GOP-initiated Voter ID statute - - is to tilt elections and embed GOP power by obstructing ballot-box access in cities with large populations of minority, transit-dependent, Democratic-leaning voters. This coordinated, one-party manipulation of state power for partisan and constituencies' advantage should be slapped down hard and overturned without equivocation by state courts to ensure unobstructed voting in Wisconsin."

Rowen, civil rights activists and citizens are calling for federal Voting Rights oversight to protect Wisconsin voters against the Republican political power structure aiming to determine who is able to vote in Wisconsin through a raft of legislation that appears unlawful under both the federal and Wisconsin constitutions.

Voting Rights Act Fix

In Congress, legislation is being considered that appears to prohibit the Voting Rights Act from being used against state voter obstruction laws such as Wisconsin's photo voter ID and other anti-voting laws.

Ironically, this legislation is meant to repair the Voting Rights Act, gutted by the Supreme Court.

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) legislation, like the judicial and executive response, should single out and challenge state efforts using IDs as a tool to determine who gets to vote.

"The Voting Rights Act itself has been called the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress," reads the U.S. Dept. of Justice site.

This is precisely why five GOP justices targeted the VRA in Shelby v. Holder, despite as Judge Posner would note today, an extensive empirical record.

Writes Justice Ginsburg in dissent:

In the long course of the legislative process, Congress 'amassed a sizable record.' Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U. S. 193, 205 (2009) . See also 679 F. 3d 848, 865–873 (CADC 2012) (describing the “extensive record” supporting Congress’ determination that “serious and widespread intentional discrimination persisted in covered jurisdictions”). The House and Senate Judiciary Committees held 21 hearings, heard from scores of witnesses, received a number of investigative reports and other written documentation of continuing discrimination in covered jurisdictions. In all, the legislative record Congress compiled filled more than 15,000 pages. H. R. Rep. 109–478, at 5, 11–12; S. Rep. 109–295, at 2–4,15. The compilation presents countless “examples of flagrant racial discrimination” since the last reauthorization; Congress also brought to light systematic evidence that “intentional racial discrimination in voting remains so serious and widespread in covered jurisdictions that section 5 preclearance is still needed.” 679 F. 3d, at 866.

Scott Walker and the Republicans never campaigned on it, and Wisconsin is inflicted by an underground political movement that has seized Wisconsin government and is attempting to disenfranchise the people who comprise the state.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice must step in to protect the rights of the Wisconsin people as guaranteed in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Twenty-Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and pursuant to Section Two of the Voting Rights Act: Enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.