Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Lawsuits await GOP changes to voting in state

- Patrick Marley

MADISON - The state could face a raft of legal challenges if Republican lawmakers succeed in enacting restrictio­ns on how voting is conducted in Wisconsin.

“There are numerous constituti­onal and federal law violations (in the legislatio­n), some of which are just lowhanging fruit. They’d be easy cases to win,” said Jon Sherman, litigation director for the Fair Elections Center in Washington, D.C.

Republican Sen. Duey Stroebel of Saukville disputed that, saying the bills he recently unveiled could withstand legal challenges.

“I’d be hard-pressed to find a more litigious area of the statutes than election law,” Stroebel said in a statement.

“At the end of the day, Republican election integrity bills, including photo ID, are almost always upheld by appeals courts because we do our job. We will consult with impartial attorneys through the legislativ­e process and make adjustment­s if needed, but not because opponents of the policy make accusation­s.”

Republican­s who control the Legislatur­e have made changes to voting laws a top priority after Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s presidenti­al election.

It’s unclear what measures will get approved, and those that do are sure to be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. But if Republican­s win the governor’s race in 2022, they may gain a free hand to make the changes they want.

Not all Republican­s are entirely on board with Stroebel’s legislatio­n.

“Some of them have good ideas. Some of them have problems,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said at a news conference last month.

Vos didn’t specify what he saw as problems. But, like Stroebel, Vos said he supported narrowing the law that allows people to vote absentee without showing an ID if they are indefinitely confined because of age or disability.

Courts over the last decade upheld the bulk of the ID law after an onslaught of lawsuits. That litigation has mostly petered out but could be revived if the latest proposals were put into effect.

“This is an area I think we would expect to see draw more litigation if this bill actually takes effect,” said Mel Barnes, staff counsel at Law Forward, a liberal nonprofit law firm in Madison that focuses on voting issues.

One of Stroebel’s bills would require indefinitely confined voters to provide a copy of their ID when they vote absentee, just as most other voters must.

“This is a sea change to the Wisconsin voter ID law. I think it opens it up again to constituti­onal attack,” Sherman said, saying it would harm disabled voters and those who have trouble getting IDs. “This would open a whole Pandora’s box of potential problems for these classes of voters who struggle to provide a photocopy of their ID.”

Sherman and the Fair Elections Center represente­d the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in litigation last year to try to make it easier to vote during the coronaviru­s pandemic. He said if Stroebel’s proposals become law he would look for clients so he could bring a new lawsuit.

Stroebel said he expected litigation but was confident courts would side with him. He said his legislatio­n, like most bills, would likely be modified after lawmakers hear from the public.

Republican­s want to clamp down on the law for confined voters because so many more voters claimed that status last year because of the pandemic. About 215,000 voters identified themselves as confined for the November election, compared with 67,000 in the 2016 presidenti­al election.

Republican­s have questioned whether voters labeled themselves confined to sidestep the ID law. Democrats have said there is nothing unusual about people saying they couldn’t leave their homes during a pandemic.

While indefinitely confined voters are not required to produce an ID to vote, nearly 80% of them have an ID on file with their clerk or have shown one at the polls in the last four years, records show.

Bills would face legal scrutiny

Under one of Stroebel’s bills, voters who are under 65 would have to get a doctor’s note to be considered indefinitely confined. Sherman said that provision would violate the 26th Amendment’s ban on discrimina­ting against voters based on age.

The amendment, approved in 1971, gave those 18 and older the right to vote and says that right “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”

“This is blatant age discrimina­tion,” Sherman said of putting more requiremen­ts on those under 65. “That’s just patently unconstitu­tional.”

Republican­s disagreed with that argument, saying there’s not a constituti­onal right to be deemed an indefinitely confined voter. The Legislatur­e can set policies for how that designatio­n is determined based on age, they argued.

Under another part of Stroebel’s legislatio­n, those who identified themselves as indefinitely confined after

March 2020 would no longer be considered indefinitely confined and would have to re-apply for that status.

That time frame was chosen because that’s about when the pandemic began and when the Milwaukee and Dane county clerks suggested voters could claim to be confined because of the pandemic. They withdrew the advice in the face of a lawsuit and the state Supreme Court later found their claims were wrong.

Sherman argued changing how thousands of people vote would violate their due-process rights, saying each of them needed to be notified and given a chance to be heard. Republican­s disputed that, saying they had the ability to effectively restart the program.

Another bill would ban employees of nursing homes from encouragin­g residents to request absentee ballots or offering to assist them with voting.

Sherman said he believed that provision would violate the free-speech rights of employees who want to let residents know elections are coming up and they are willing to help them. Republican­s said their proposal should be viewed as a way to protect vulnerable people from undue influence.

Another bill is meant to prevent what opponents call “ballot harvesting” — allowing groups to gather absentee ballots from voters and return them to election clerks. The bill would allow most voters to hand off their absentee ballots only to family members or legal guardians.

Sherman said that policy would violate a part of the federal Voting Rights Act that allows blind voters and certain disabled voters to choose who they want to help them vote. Republican­s said their proposal was in keeping with laws in other states.

 ??  ?? Stroebel
Stroebel

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States