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 FROM
THE
EDGE
OF
THE
CHAIR
Kerry
Trask
Wisconsin
has long had the most open, honest, fair, voter-friendly election
system in the entire country and that accounts, in large part, for
why we also have some of the highest voter turn-out rates anywhere in
North America. In the 2008 election, for example, 70.89% of our
voting age population cast ballots, down just a little from the
73.82% in 2004. In voter turn-out we have consistently ranked second
highest in the country, just slightly behind Minnesota.
This
is a gratifying reflection of the highly democratic character of our
civic culture. But all this is about to change once the Republicans
pass their Voter ID bill.
This
legislation will require all eligible voters to have and to show an
official photo ID card at the polls, beginning in 2012. On top of
that, the Republicans intend to end same-day voter registration,
increase residency requirements, eliminate the ability of voting a
straight party ticket, and create additional barriers for voters with
disabilities. When they have finished messing with the current
system we will be left with the most restrictive voting system in the
entire nation.
All
of this, they declare, is urgently necessary to protect the integrity
of our elections from the virulent threats of voter fraud.
Such
trumped-up fears and bogus rationalizations have seldom been more
unjustified. Indeed, in 2008 even our unusually zealous, right-wing
Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen, righteously ranting about rampant
electoral corruption in Milwaukee, was only able to find 11
suspicious ballots among the nearly 3 million cast. Upon further
investigation that number was reduced to just three. Normally that
should have ended all suspicions about the trustworthiness of our
voters or the integrity of our elections, leading most rational
people to conclude that the Voter ID is an unnecessary and costly
solution desperately in search of a problem.
But
legislators like Joe Leibham, the chief champion of this proposal,
refused to be dissuaded by the facts. That is because his Voter ID
plan has virtually nothing to do with election integrity or voter
fraud—no more than Walker’s attacks on collective
bargaining had anything to do with balancing the budget. The real
and only purpose of this bill is to suppress voter turnout.
As introduced by Leibham,
this bill is the most restrictive voter ID legislation in the nation,
moving Wisconsin from the best to the worst.
The
facts of most apparent concern to Leibham and his co-conspirators are
those that clearly demonstrate how Democrats fare consistently well
whenever voter turnout is high. And they also know it doesn’t
take much to discourage people from voting. Therefore, the real
purpose of Leibham’s Voter Suppression Bill is to frustrate and
prevent large numbers of citizens—especially those most likely
to vote Democratic—from casting ballots.
When
Leibham’s Voter Suppression Bill is passed (and it will be
passed) only a Wisconsin driver’s license or a Department of
Motor Vehicles issued photo ID card will be acceptable as valid
identification for voting. Consequentially the DMV will be empowered
as gate-keeper to our voting rights.
The
problematic nature of that situation is perfectly apparent to anyone
who has ever tried to communicate with or stood in line at the DMV
office. Throughout the state 26% of the DMV offices are open only
one day a month or less, more than half are open just part-time, 3
counties have no DMV offices at all, and only one DMV office in the
entire state is open on weekends. Remember, it doesn’t take
much to discourage people from voting. Thus, it requires no
intellectual brilliance to see just how daunting this system will be
for rural people or those with disabilities or full-time jobs.
Furthermore,
this policy will negatively impact some people more than others.
Most white, middle class, middle aged, married, English-speaking,
straight people (the ones most likely to vote Republican) will be
fine. On the other hand, the people currently lacking the required
DMV-issued photo ID cards or driver’s licenses, and who will
have to fight the system to get one if they wish to vote, include:
23% of all citizens over 65 years old, 55% of all African American
men, 49% of all African American women, 46% of all Hispanic men, 59%
of Hispanic women, and a considerably large number of our university
students. One thing all these people have in common is their
inclination to vote for Democrats.
This
shamefully brazen power play, which may cost as much as $20 million
to implement, is just part of a grander design including the
dismantling of public employee unions, the flood tide of shady
election spending made possible by the Citizens
United decision, and
the creative gerrymandering yet to come with redistricting.
Altogether this will enable Republicans to achieve a decided
advantage in their
efforts to elect more and more of their reactionary, corporate-backed
candidates eager to sell Wisconsin to the super-rich.
The
Voter Suppression Bill is an ugly but revealing reflection of the
anti-democratic character of what the Republican Party has become.
Under Scott Walker it is a party without a social conscience, caring
little for either the rights of our people or their well-being,
caught up in its own lust for power and the creation of an autocratic
corporate state based upon a vast concentration and control of
wealth.
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