Appeals court blocks purge of state’s voter rolls for now
MADISON - An appeals court ordered the state to keep more than 200,000 people on its voter rolls Tuesday, a day after an Ozaukee County judge found election officials in contempt of court for not following his December decision to suspend voter registrations.
In a separate order, one of the judges on the appeals court blocked the contempt finding, relieving the commission and three of its members of $800 a day in fines.
Tuesday’s rulings are not final and were put in place temporarily while the appeals court considers whether anyone should be taken off the rolls. But for now, the decision is a victory for Democrats who hoped to prevent thousands of people from losing their voter registrations. At issue in the lawsuit is the voting status of more than 200,000 people in a closely divided state. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes and both sides have targeted Wisconsin in 2020.
The decision blocking the purge of the voter rolls was issued by District 4 Court of Appeals Judges Michael Fitzpatrick, JoAnne Kloppenburg and Jennifer Nashold. The same judges had twice previously declined to stop the purge.
They wrote that they issued the order quickly because they knew the commission was meeting Tuesday. They will spell out their reasoning in a later opinion, they wrote.
Separately, Fitzpatrick issued a decision halting the contempt finding because Ozaukee Circuit Judge Paul
Malloy’s original decision has been blocked.
Rick Esenberg, president of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty that is spearheading the lawsuit, said he would now focus on the appeals court.
“What is true yesterday is true today,” he said in a statement. “The Wisconsin Elections Commission isn’t following state law and we look forward to making that case in the Court of Appeals.”
The commission discussed the decisions Tuesday but split along party lines about what to do in response to them.
Republicans wanted to send a new letter to voters who are suspected of having moved this summer and remove them from the voter rolls if they did not respond to the letters. Democrats blocked the effort during a debate that was at times acrimonious.
“Are we going to allow in the state of Wisconsin, 200,000-plus people that should not be on the voting rolls because they’ve moved, they don’t exist, whatever?” said Commissioner Robert Spindell, a Republican.
“It’s a Republican-Democrat issue, the Dems like to have huge numbers of people on the list and the Republicans like to have clean lists and that’s a problem that I don’t think we’ll be able to overcome.”
Responded Commissioner Julie Glancey, a Democrat: “These are eligible, registered voters. They are not by any stretch of the imagination illegal or anything else. They are true people who registered to vote and are eligible to register to vote. They may or may not have moved.
“This is not an example of 200,000 illegal registrants on our voting list.”
Later, Commissioner Ann Jacobs asked Spindell not to call her or other Democratic commissioners “disgusting” for opposing efforts to take people off the rolls.
“I think that’s a good point,” he said. “Instead of ‘disgusting,’ it’s ‘outrageous.’ ”
If voters are ultimately removed from the rolls, they can re-register to vote online at myvote.wi.gov, at their clerk’s offices or at the polls on Election Day. Voters can also use that state website to check their registration status and find out if they have been flagged as possibly moving.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission in October notified more than 230,000 people it believed they may have moved and asked them to update their voter registrations or confirm they were at the same address. It planned to remove them from the rolls in 2021 if they didn’t act.
Three voters represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sued, arguing the state had to remove them from the rolls much faster. Malloy agreed and ordered the voters purged from the rolls.
The commission has twice deadlocked on whether to take people off the rolls as it pursues its appeal.
The inability to take action prompted Malloy on Monday to find the commission and its Democratic members — Jacobs, Glancey and Mark Thomsen — in contempt of court. He fined the commission $50 a day and the commissioners $250 a day each.
But no fines were levied because of the actions of the appeals court.
How long the appeals court will take to resolve the case is unknown. Commission Chairman Dean Knudson, a Republican, said he expected the voters to remain on the rolls at least through the April 7 election, when voters will choose a Supreme Court justice and decide which Democratic presidential candidate they want to challenge Trump.
The state Supreme Court is staying out of the way for now because the justices could not agree Monday on whether to take the case.