Last Tuesday in Madison, a Republican controlled legislative committee, on a party-line vote, ordered the state’s accountability board to write “administrative rules” on the state’s new voter ID law, determining what counts as appropriate forms of voter identification under the law.
The central issue behind the vote was determining the eligibility of technical college IDs as a valid form of voter ID. The Government Accountability Board determined in September that technical college IDs could not be used under the state’s new ID law but this month reversed their decision. The majority in the legislative committee, in response, ordered the Board to submit “formal rules” on ID cards.
Democrats in the legislature are alleging that bouncing the decision on technical college IDs back to the accountability board is another Republican effort to undermine the voting rights of any groups that are likely to vote Democratic. In this case, Republicans have targeted students. An article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article noted that Republicans in the legislature “never intended to include technical college IDs and said that was clear because the Assembly rejected an amendment to the legislation that would have explicitly allowed them”.
Right-wing activists and Republican legislators are increasingly arguing that strict voter ID rules are necessary to prevent voter fraud. These claims, however, lack any serious substance. In a recent report on voter suppression, PFAW Foundation notes that in the 2008 election, prior to Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators’ efforts to enact a Voter ID law, “there were just 14 improper votes cast in Wisconsin, out of a total of 3 million”.
The uproar over technical college IDs in Wisconsin shows how burdensome and undemocratic Voter ID laws can be. Politicians should not be allowed to decide which eligible voters are allowed to cast votes.