Wisconsin voter I D law found unconstitutional

[Augiedog]

Big surprise there. Our wonderful attorney general plans to appeal and state senator Glenn growth man wants an emergency session to fix this horrible injustice. Can't have those "folks of another color or economic status" voting.

[Gothmog]

1. Here is a good explanation of this opinion from Professor Hasen

Prof. Hasen is an expert on election law. http://electionlawblog.org/?p=60972

Here are my initial thoughts on Frank v. Walker, in which a federal district court held that Wisconsin’s voter id law both violates the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act:

1. This is about the best possible opinion that opponents of voter identification laws could have hoped for. It is heavy on both facts and on law. It is thoughtful and well written. It finds that a voter id law serves neither an anti-fraud purposes (because “virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future”) nor voter confidence purposes. It finds that it burdens lots of voters (up to 300,000) voters. It finds these burdens fall especially on Black and Latino voters and that the reason is does is poverty, which is itself the result of prior legal discrimination.It enjoins enforcement of the law for everyone, and expresses considerable doubt that the Wisconsin legislature could amend the law to make it constitutional. It is about as strong a statement as one might imagine as to the problems the voter id law.

2. Wisconsin is likely to appeal, and it is unclear how the case will fare in the 7th Circuit and possibly the Supreme Court. (Further making this complicated is that there are state case putting voter id on hold and now pending before the State Supreme Court.) A special twist is that Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit made controversial remarks about voter id laws being a means of voter suppression, and expressing regret about his earlier decision in the Indiana voter id case. It is not clear what role, if any, he will play in any appeal.

3. Both the constitutional law and VRA section 2 claims are controversial. On the con law point, the judge purports to apply the “Anderson-Burdick” balancing test that the Supreme Court applied in upholding Indiana’s voter id law in the Crawford case. The judge purports to apply Crawford, but reaches a different result. It is not clear that this is a fair application of that test–which seems to suggest at most that the law be upheld as to most voters but create an “as applied” exemption for a specific class of voters. The judge said that this was not practical in this case given the large number of Wisconsin voters who lack id. It is not clear that the appellate courts will agree.

4. On the VRA issue, this is the first full ruling on how to adjudicate voter id vote denial cases under section 2. The key test appears on page 52 of the pdf: “Based on the text, then,
I conclude that Section 2 protects against a voting practice that creates a barrier to voting
that is more likely to appear in the path of a voter if that voter is a member of a minority
group than if he or she is not. The presence of a barrier that has this kind of disproportionate impact prevents the political process from being ‘equally open’ to all and results in members of the minority group having ‘less opportunity’ to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” The judge also approaches the causation/results question in a straightforward way. It is not clear whether the appellate courts will agree or not agree with this approach, which would seem to put a number of electoral processes which burden poor and minority voters up for possible VRA liability.

In sum, this is a huge victory for voter id proponents. But time will tell if this ruling survives.

I would love to see Judge Posner on the panel that hears this case so that he can undo some of the damage done in the Crawford case.

This case will be used in the Texas voter id case.

[Augiedog]

2. Thank you for providing a detailed explanation of the facts as they currently stand

[Gothmog]

3. I am following this issue closely

The Texas voter suppression/voter id law goes to trial on September 2 of this year.

[malokvale77]

4. I am also following this closely

My brother just received notification that his Texas ID is up for renewal.

He is legally blind and cannot drive. This means I have to take off work and drive him to the DMV and wait for hours so he can pay $26 for an official picture ID just so he can vote.

The way I have it figured, with the loss of work and the money he has to dish out, we go without groceries for a week. All so he can cast his rightful vote. It is a crock of shit.

[Gothmog]

6. If he is blind, he can vote by mail without id or qualify for a permanent exemption

There are two different disability provisions that could apply to your brother. If he meets the Social Security or Veterans Administration's definition of disability with a rating of 50% or greater, he can go to voter registrar and fill out form that allows him to vote in person without ID. He needs to bring a copy of his disability determination and show that his ID is about to expire. If he meets the requirements for this exemption, then his voter registration card will be reissued showing that he can vote with that card and no other form of id. So far, very few disabled voters have used this exemption. This is a permanent exemption that means he will never have to pay for another id to vote.

The second exemption that is available to your brother is to vote by mail. There is no statutory definition for the vote by mail provisions of the Texas Election Code. Each voter has to determine if they are disabled when they apply for a vote by mail ballot. Your brother can print out an application to vote by mail on the Texas Democratic Party website and mail that application in. You do need an id to vote by mail and the State Democratic Party is helping voters use this method. In my county, we mailed out 14,000 applications and went from 96 voters voting by mail in the 2012 democratic primary to over 1,100 voters for the March primary.

Juanita Jean is the chair of the disability caucus for the Texas Democratic Party and you contact her through her website if you have questions. I have helping her with these issues.

I hope that this helps. Hopefully, the Texas voter suppression law will be held invalid in September and so your brother will not need to rely on these exemptions.

[malokvale77]

7. He is on SSDI...

and has been since 6 years old. This is good to know, but he really likes the experience of going to the polls. He doesn't get many opportunities to get out and do normal things. I have to vote in person anyway so it is a small thing I can do for him. We early vote so I don't miss work.

[Gothmog]

8. If he applies for the disability exemption under the voter id law, he can vote in person

If your brother applies for The exemption under the voter id law, he will be allowed to vote in person without a picture id. If he is qualified under SSDI, then he is entitled to this exemption. After your brother qualifies, he can vote with his voter registration card only.

[Augiedog]

5. Hope

Our best hope as a nation is for all to be owners of our condition. The very notion that organized and allegedly valid efforts by a nationally acclaimed political party to exclude a portion of the nations owners from exercising their right and obligation to assist in directing the nations course based on apocryphal data is obscene. The only way to cure a lot of our nations ills is to call on every person to take responsibility for what we are, not just an elite privileged few who see themselves as some sort of Hobbesian monarchists. These efforts at voter suppression are the true voter fraud. A similar argument exits in the republicans anti affordable health care act efforts. Death panels they warn are contained in this new form of socialism.the real death panels are those individuals sitting in the governors seats in states which declined to accept ACA assistance. Sorry for going on, but this matters to me.