Here are some of the key forms voter suppression takes in Wisconsin.
• Closing DMV stations or reducing hours in state budgets. John Oliver, on the Feb. 14, 2016, episode of his show, “Last Week Tonight,” mocked a DMV in Sauk City that was only open on the fifth Wednesday of the month (2016 had just four months with five Wednesdays). He pointed out that, in 2012, fewer than half of the state’s DMVs were open every business day.
• Making it difficult to obtain a free state photo ID that can be used for voting. From a badly underfunded voter education campaign to false information given out at DMV facilities to customers requesting free state photo IDs, a federal judge ruling on various Wisconsin election laws called the efforts “a wretched failure.”
• Imposing limits on early voting, student IDs and residency. Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature have passed laws curtailing early voting to weekdays between set hours at only one location per municipality and nearly tripled the residency requirement from the current 10 days. The One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action were successful in having those restrictions overturned in court by proving they made it harder for Democrats to vote.
• Replacing the non-partisan Government Accountability Board with the Elections Commission, followed by several rounds of cutting the commission’s staff, including those that help local election clerks. The Walker administration has left important election security positions vacant despite criticism.
• Purging voter databases to undo a voter’s registration without their knowledge.
• Gerrymandering. While done to give partisan advantage, gerrymandering voting districts can also make would-be voters feel that their vote doesn’t matter when, in fact, the opposite is true. The only way to overcome partisan redistricting—as has happened twice in 2018 special elections—is for more people to vote. In a Rolling Stone article on Wisconsin election rigging, former attorney general Eric Holder, founder of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said gerrymandering, unregulated dark money and strict voter ID laws should make Americans worried about our democracy. “We could end up with a system where a well-financed minority that has views inconsistent with the vast majority of the American people runs this country.”
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• A method employed by dictators around the world: simply refuse to call an election—as Walker refused to do with two special elections in vacant seats—until forced to do so by a court ruling.
Groups tracking the voter suppression in Wisconsin used in this list include the Brennan Center for Justice, American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project and One Wisconsin Institute.
