Opponents of Wisconsin Voter ID seek full appeals court review
Want law blocked before election.
The legal challenges surrounding Wisconsin’s contentious voter ID law just got a little more complicated.
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin and Advancement Project asked for a full-court hearing to reconsider September 12th’s ruling allowing the State to implement voter ID requirements in time for the midterm elections.
Contending last week’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago came too close to the election date and will sow confusion among voters and polling place officials, the American Civil Liberties Union, League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin and Advancement Project asked for a rehearing by a full 10-judge panel.
The groups submitted their request yesterday. The court today gave Wisconsin officials until Sept. 23 to respond.
…
“No court has permitted a voter ID law to go into effect this close to an election based on last-minute changes to the law,” the opponents of the measure said in yesterday’s filing.
September 12’s ruling allowed the provisions to go into effect only because the State eliminated barriers to acquiring a valid ID. This countered arguments that the requirements could cause irreparable harm to voters:
The district court held the state law invalid, and enjoined its implementation, even though it is materially identical to Indiana’s photo ID statute, which the Supreme Court held valid in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008). It did this based on findings that it thought showed that Wisconsin did not need this law to promote an important governmental interest, and that persons of lower income (disproportionately minorities) are less likely to have driver’s licenses, other acceptable photo ID, or the birth certificates needed to obtain them, which led the court to hold that the statute violates §2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §1973.
After the district court’s decision, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin revised the procedures to make it easier for persons who have difficulty affording any fees to obtain the birth certificates or other documentation needed under the law, or to have the need for documentation waived. Milwaukee Branch of NAACP v. Walker, 2014 WI 98 Guly 31, 2014). This reduces the likelihood of irreparable injury, and it also changes the balance of equities and thus the propriety of federal injunctive relief. The panel has concluded that the state’s probability of success on the merits of this appeal is sufficiently great that the state should be allowed to implement its law, pending further order of this court.
If the court agrees to reconsider the interim ruling, the full (Republican-led panel) will hear the case.
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Comments
Not clear to me that the full Circuit Court will enjoin a law that the Supreme Court (in the Indiana case) has already said was constitutional.
But keeping the law off the books for one more election, combined with the Democrats fervent mining of Catalist, gives them a chance to remove Walker. That’s what the issue is here.
Don’t know either, but since this is critical to the Dem’s chance at retaking the WI governorship, I would look closely at the party affiliation of the judges on that Circuit (i.e. who appointed them). We have seen, time and again, esp. Dem appointed judges deciding cases on purely political grounds. Sure, they know that it is highly likely that the voter ID law would be approved by the Supreme Court. But, that won’t be until after the upcoming election, where they have a decent chance at ousting the Republican Governor, esp. if voter ID is (temporarily) outlawed.
What is the League of United Latin American Citizens?
I assume, probably correctly, that it is an organization of citizens of Latin American countries, living and working here illegally, who wish to participate in US elections.
We are SO screwed ….
That’s the organization more infamously known as LULAC. I think the “C” ostensibly stands for citizens of the United States, or in this case “citizens of Wisconsin,” having Latin American heritage. But it’s doubtful they really care about trivial distinctions like citizenship anymore.
An obvious question is why U.S. citizens with Latin American heritage would have any more difficulty acquiring photo ID than citizens of European ethnicity. Efforts made to demonstrate such difficulty in court have been highly unpersuasive.
From Wiki on LULAC’s early history: “LULAC’s central means of achieving equal status with Anglo-Saxons was dependent on promoting the image of Mexican residents as conforming to the cultural norms of the United States.” Obviously they’ve dropped that whole “cultural norms” concept — not just dropped, but emphatically repudiated.
If you are too stupid to figure out how to obtain a voter id then perhaps you should not be voting.
There is a good chance you might poke yourself in the eye with the voting punch, hang yourself on the curtains around the booth or choke to death on the little sticker that says “I Voted!”
If you list all the other activities for which photo ID is required, lefties will say “That’s different; voting is a fundamental right.” Well, not quite; there are certain legal qualifications; and is it any more fundamental than the right to travel?
Anyway, voting affects other people more deeply than many or most of those other activities. It isn’t just having a say in your own life, but in other people’s lives too. It’s appalling that people can cast votes affecting my life without even having a reasonable grasp of the language in which the public debate is conducted.
It is a very tight Governors race in Wisconsin. Staying the voter identification law is crucial to Democrat chances.
The Wisconsin law modeled after the Indian voter id law found Constitutional by the US Supreme Court in Crawford v. Marion County. However a carefully chosen District Court judge found that the gravement of Crawford did not apply in Wisconsin.
It’s not that the changes “came too close to the election date and will sow confusion among voters” it’s that a liberal judge (Clinton appointee, former Democrat legislator) stayed the implementation of those changes until overturned. The legislature put this law into effect with PLENTY of time to make the necessary changes. We cannot allow single, politically motivated judges to use the delay tactic to achieve their goal of thwarting the will of the people and implementation of voter ID for another election cycle.
If the complaint is that the recent decision comes too close to the election to be implemented, wouldn’t a reversal of it come closer yet?
After the ObamaCare fiasco, there is nothing the left can do that will surprise me when it comes to breaking and perverting the rules of order.
There is only one reason to oppose voter ID.
Electoral Commission of South Africa
summary: citizens, registered, and identified voters only
I think it’s only America which enables commission of simple fraud. That does not even begin to cover complex commissions of fraud and disenfranchisement.
Their popular consensus on treatment of illegal aliens is even more strict than Mexico. Their citizens who live on the border murder and rape aliens who cross illegally into South Africa. It’s a progressive form of apartheid, I guess.
With nearly a $3 trillion welfare economy, there is no logical excuse for any American citizen to remain indigent, even homeless, let alone unidentified.
The hypocrisy of the left is never more blindingly obviously than in the contrast between Voter ID and gun control laws.
People can’t be given the ‘undue burden’ of obtaining a FREE ID.
Yet in places like Washington DC they impose regulations and hoops to jump through that require weeks, sometimes MONTHS of time, and hundreds of dollars in fees to acquire a firearm.
It’s the same game plan by the left we’ve seen for years. 1) Delay the implementation of voter fraud laws past the key election by court shopping until you find a sympathetic judge; 2) Steal the election; 3) With your folks in control ignore voter fraud laws (or if you’ve captured the SOS, use them selectively against Republicans/conservatives).
It’s called the long march.
I presume that all of the people who would be “disadvantaged” by the requirement for a voter ID are people who never:
Buy alcoholic beverages
Buy tobacco products
Buy firearms
Rent anything
Open a bank account
Apply for a job
File for unemployment
Apply for welfare, Medicaid, and food stamps.
Get on an airplane
Get married
Pick up prescription drugs
Enter a casino
Buy lottery tickets.
Buy am M-rated video game
[sarcasm]
The list of things these “voter-ID-disadvantaged” can’t do because they don’t have/can’t get an ID goes on and on. Don’t you feel sorry for the emptiness of their lives because of all these things prohibited to them? Why, they can’t even buy a beer to drown their sorrow!
[/sarcasm]
If you want to buy a six pack of beer, you must show ID, even if you are 70 years old in many stores. Is voting less important than drinking beer?