"This Is Nothing More Than an Effort to Suppress the Vote"

WISCONSIN

Not only does Wisconsin now require all voters to show state-issued photo ID, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has even tried to make it harder for people to get the identification they need.

The Republican governor ordered 10 DMV offices around the state closed this summer, but public outrage forced him to reverse the decision. But CWA members say there are still many battles to fight.

Local 4621’s Betsy LaFontaine just moved her 85-year-old father into assisted care, and doesn’t know whether he’ll be allowed to vote. Nursing and retirement home residents are supposed to be exempt from the state-issued photo ID requirement, but many of them, like her father, need absentee ballots. And that requires mailing the state a copy of a state-issued photo ID.

“It may be too hard for him to get to the DMV to get it updated,” with his new address, LaFontaine says. “This will discourage many people from voting — not just the elderly, but also the poor, and people in rural areas.”

Although at least 30 U.S. states have passed or are considering voter suppression laws, Wisconsin’s is considered one the nation’s most exclusionary, LaFontaine says. As in Florida, it sharply limits voter registration by third-party organizations such as the League of Women Voters.

“This is nothing more than an effort to suppress the vote,” LaFontaine says. “Governor Scott Walker and Republicans in the state Senate pushed the bill through without hearings, rejecting 50 amendments by Democrats to make it less restrictive.”

Walker and others have claimed the law is needed to protect against voter fraud, but a 2008 investigation by Wisconsin’s attorney general found only 19 substantiated cases of voter fraud out of 3 million votes cast.

Closing the DMV offices wasn’t Walker’s only attempt to make it harder for people to get state-issued IDs, and get them for free, as the law requires.

“This summer, a top state transportation official directed DMV employees statewide not to tell customers about the (free) cards unless asked,” says Local 4603’s Kathy Antoniewicz, who serves as a poll inspector on election days. “‘You should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,’ is how the official put it in the memo that was leaked to Madison newspapers.”

Even the supposedly free card amounts to a poll tax, Antoniewicz says. “The photo ID may be free, but complying with the law will have a big cost for many voters, and it’s clear the state is doing little to get out information. It’s up to us to pick up the slack and educate people about what they will need to do in order to vote.”