Slowly—but surely and steadily—the Republican attacks on voting rights and clean elections are being struck down in courts here and across the country.
Late on Friday afternoon, U.S. Judge James Peterson found that some of the recent voting laws enacted by Wisconsin Republicans were unconstitutional. Specifically, Peterson struck down the new limits on early voting, requiring dorm lists to include citizenship information, bumping up the residency requirement from 10 days to 28 days, banning the distribution of absentee ballots by fax or email and the ban on using expired student IDs. He upheld the voter ID law, but has serious problems with how it’s been implemented. And he wrote that the law limiting early voting was targeted to suppress the votes of Milwaukee’s African Americans.
None of Peterson’s ruling will be in effect for the Aug. 9 primary election, unfortunately, and Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel will likely appeal it.
The suit, brought by the One Wisconsin Institute and the Citizen Action Education Fund, revealed that Republicans were “giddy” and “frothing at the mouth” about potentially disenfranchising voters.
It’s just one Wisconsin court case that is hoping to clean up our elections system and restore our full voting rights. Another, brought by 12 Democratic voters and supported by the bipartisan Fair Elections Project, seeks to throw out the Republicans’ unfair, GOP-tilted legislative map that puts Democrats in a permanent minority, even when they receive more votes than their Republican counterparts. In addition, there is the terrible Wisconsin Supreme Court decision halting the John Doe investigation into potential campaign finance violations committed by Gov. Scott Walker and allied special interest groups, which Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm is attempting to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. And there’s the federal judge’s decision that will allow those who don’t have a voter ID to vote in the Nov. 8 general election as long as they sign an affidavit affirming their identity. AG Schimel requested on Monday that a federal appeals court halt the decision creating an affidavit process.
Taken together, favorable decisions in these cases—and others sprouting up across the country—will begin to restore our full voting rights. It’s a shame that in 2016 we are still battling over the right to vote, but Republicans have made a concerted effort since the tea party wave election of 2010 to make it difficult for some voters—especially racial or ethnic minority voters, the poor, students and seniors—to cast a ballot. We can’t let them rig the system in their favor.
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