Wisconsin Voter ID Law Ruled Unconstitutional

Several changes Republicans made to Wisconsin election laws over the past several years are unconstitutional and were created to unfairly suppress Democratic votes, according to a ruling issued by a federal judge.

The order resets the rules for voting less than four months before the presidential election.

“We are disappointed in the decision by an activist federal judge”, he said in a statement. He struck down a restriction limiting municipalities to one location for in-person absentee voting, time limits on in-person absentee voting, an increase in residency requirements from 10 to 28 days, and a prohibition on using expired but otherwise qualifying student IDs to vote. “The legislature’s immediate goal was to achieve a partisan objective, but the means of achieving that objective was to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans”.

Two liberal groups filed a lawsuit in May challenging the laws, including a requirement that voters show photo identification.

Aides to Schimel defended the laws, arguing lawmakers have broad leeway to set voting rules as they see fit. State and local elections officials said they would immediately assess how to administer elections under the sweeping ruling.

Republicans were highly critical of the ruling.

President Barack Obama appointed Peterson to the bench in 2014.

Those who have had the most difficulty getting IDs are overwhelmingly minorities. That law withstood a challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court. Many of those states, including Wisconsin, have passed laws that are more stringent than Indiana’s, sparking a new wave of litigation.

State Department of Justice spokesman Johnny Koremenos said DOJ plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

Instead, he ordered the state to quickly issue credentials valid for voting to anyone trying to obtain a free photo ID for voting, and found multiple items within state elections laws unconstitutional. And just last week, a federal judge in Milwaukee blew a hole in Wisconsin’s voter ID law, saying people having trouble getting the required ID can sign an affidavit to vote in the Nob. Vos argued that the laws “do not disenfranchise voters; they protected the integrity of our elections and people’s right to vote”.

A panel of three judges from that court upheld the measure in September 2014. The judge sent the case back to the lower court to examine whether the law had a discriminatory objective and also asked the court for a short-term fix for the November general election. “To put it bluntly, Wisconsin’s strict version of voter ID law is a worse cure than the disease”.