This past week has been a busy one on the voting rights front. North Carolina's voter ID law was struck down as discriminatory. We now we learn that parts of Wisconsin's voter and early voting laws were struck down as the presiding judge saw no evidence of supposed voter fraud which the laws were meant to stop. The judge also stated that the laws did hurt minority communities. Looks like republican attempts at voter suppression are running into this very annoying thing, the truth about voter fraud. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com.
Finding that Republican lawmakers had discriminated against minorities, a federal judge Friday struck down parts of Wisconsin's voter ID law, limits on early voting and prohibitions on allowing people to vote early at multiple sites.
With the presidential election less than four months away, GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel said he plans to appeal the sweeping decision by U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson.
Peterson also turned back other election laws Republicans have put in place in recent years.
"The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities," U.S. District Judge James Peterson wrote.
"To put it bluntly, Wisconsin's strict version of voter ID law is a cure worse than the disease."
Judge Peterson struck down the following provisions of the law:
■ Limits on early voting Republicans have put in place in recent years. GOP lawmakers restricted early voting to weekdays during the two full weeks before elections, thus eliminating weekend voting that was popular in Milwaukee and other urban areas.
■ A requirement that cities can have only one place for early voting. Critics have said large cities such as Milwaukee should be able to have multiple voting sites because not everyone can get downtown easily.
■ A requirement that people must live in their voting ward 28 days before an election. Previously, people had to live in a ward for 10 days before an election.
■ The system the state uses to determine if people with the most difficulty getting IDs should be provided identification for voting. He ruled anyone in that system must immediately be granted an ID for voting within 30 days.
■ Part of the voter ID law allows people to use certain student IDs to vote, but those IDs cannot be expired. Peterson found that aspect of the law is unconstitutional, ruling that expired student IDs can be used at the polls — just as expired driver's licenses can be used for voting.
■ A requirement that dorm lists provided to poll workers include citizen information. Universities provide the lists of those living in dorms to poll workers so they have an easy way to check whether students are voting in the right wards; lawmakers put in a requirement that those lists show whether the students are U.S. citizens.
■ A prohibition on providing voters with absentee ballots by email or fax
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