By Patricia Bogumil
Interim editor
In light of new state voter ID requirements, local clerks say it’s not too early to get familiar with the new rules to avoid surprises and delays at the polls this year.
The statewide 2012 spring election is Tuesday, April 3. Any primaries needed will be held Tuesday, Feb. 14.
The clerks shared some information, via email, for voters to keep in mind for 2012.
The old way of doing things.
In previous years, election workers would ask for an acceptable photo ID at the polling place.
But voters without an acceptable photo ID could still vote.
The new normal.
Now an acceptable photo ID is required before a voter can receive a ballot, beginning with February 2012 primary elections.
Three main points are important for all voters to know, said Jan Winget, clerk-treasurer for the Village of Union Grove:
• Bring a state-approved photo ID when coming to vote (see Election 2012 story on this page for more information).
• Be prepared to sign a poll list before voting. “If they do not, they will not get a ballot,” warned Winget.
• Absentee voting in the clerks’ offices ends at 5 p.m. on the Friday before a Tuesday election. No longer will absentee ballots be issued on Monday, the day before an election.
Because of the new rules for IDs and poll list signatures, longer lines are likely this year, Winget predicted.
Clerk Tina Mayer, of the Town of Waterford, said people who’d like the option of voting absentee in 2012 can set that up in advance by bringing in an approved photo ID, which will then be kept on file in the clerk’s office, she said.
Otherwise, the new rules require that mailed-in absentee requests for ballots include a photocopy of one of the voter’s state-approved IDs.
Anyone voting absentee in person must also provide an approved ID.
“An acceptable photo id will be required before receiving a ballot at the 2012 February primary,” Mayer said, “and all subsequent elections.”
Camille Cohen, Town Clerk of the Town of Norway, said the town’s website is being updating to reflect the latest information available.
“The only message I continually share is to register early and not on the day of an election,” Cohen said. And people who are voting absentee should be prepared to provide a photo ID, she added.
“It should be a fun year ahead,” Cohen said.
Betty Novy, clerk-treasurer for the Village of Rochester, notes that the village’s recent winter edition newsletter can be used as a reference guide for the new rules.
An article on page 3 of the newsletter explains the new voter ID rules, Novy noted. “It contains the information we feel is necessary for voters to know,” she said.
She suggests that to avoid confusion and speed up the process at the polls, voters should have their ID ready when checking in with election officials.
The Village of Rochester Web site is also being updated with the most current information, Novy said.
Marilyn Rudrud, clerk/treasurer for the Town of Dover, noted that a free photo ID to be used for voting can be obtained from the state Department of Transportation.
Instructions to request and obtain the free ID are on the DOT’s website, www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.htm.
But residents of the Town of Dover’s veterans center do not need a photo ID, Rudrud added.
Two of the town’s election workers will obtain new registrations and/or applications for absentee ballots at the veterans facility and witness the signatures, Rudrud said.
And the future.
Still, all this advance preparation is being done with one eye on the courts.
On Dec. 13, a federal lawsuit was filed in Milwaukee alleging that Wisconsin’s new voter ID law is unconstitutional and will deprive people of the right to vote.
The federal suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin (ACLU) and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.
In October, the Wisconsin League of Women Voters filed suit in state court, claiming the new rules violate the suffrage section of the state constitution. A hearing on that case is set for Jan. 19 in Dane County Circuit Court.
A third lawsuit challenging the new voter ID law was filed Dec. 16 in Dane County Circuit Court by the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP and Hispanic rights group Voces de la Frontera, arguing that the law violates the right to vote under the state constitution.
And on Dec. 23, the federal government stepped in and rejected South Carolina’s new voter ID law that requires photo identification at the polls, saying it discriminates against minority voters.
South Carolina now can try to persuade a federal court to approve its voter ID law or seek reconsideration from the Justice Department.
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What is the problem with ID ??? I need one for just about everything else. They are free from the state. It seems the only organizations against it have a lot to loose for “Bad” reasons.
Semper Fi,
Al
Mr. Gonder, Voting is a right and so it’s not like “just about anything else.” The Republicon Voter ID law is designed to supress the vote of certain groups of people who tend to vote Democratic who are far less likley to have a drivers license than the general public, something the GOP has been known for years and have even been issued federal restraining orders for.
Not only that, the voter suppression law is a solution in search of a problem. The amount of voter fraud in Wisconsin is vanishingly small and dispite what you’ve been lead to believe on the AM radio and the Fox News, you cannot document otherwise.
And finally, State ID’s are free if you know to ask for it for free due to your need for voting, if you have a birth certificate, if you can get a birth certificate, if you can get off of work to go to the DMV, if you can afford to take off work to go to the DMV, if you can get to the DMV, if you can get back from the DMV. Is there a DMV in your town? Is there even a DMV in your COUNTY?! Is there public transportation to get there?
What if you weren’t born in Wisconsin? What if you weren’t born in the United States? What if you weren’t born in a hospital, but rather at home and don’t have a birth certificate like the 85 year old Wisconsin woman up north who has voted all her life and is told that if she travel to Madison and pays $250, she can get a birth certificate and then go about getting her State ID at a far away DMV. She says she should have to pay anything or do any of that and she is right!
Why is it that the followers of conservatism seem to see only what is the most obvious and surficial aspects of issues and rarely think critically about the not so obvious facts and conditions that surround those issues.
If you’re a Marine, as I assume you are by your salutation, you took an oath to uphold and defend the Constition of the United States of America from enemies foreign and domestic. What could be more central to the Constition than the right of citizens to vote unimpeded by defacto poll taxes and Jim Crow like laws. This is not the 1950s and this is NOT Wiscossissippi!
What if you born in another country,never became a citizen and then decided you wanted to vote here. With the old system that would be pretty easy eh? The polls have shown a 80-20 margin in suppport of voter I.D. It is only those that know it will hurt their voting numbers due to fraud that oppose it.
Why is it that the followers of liberalism seem to see only what is the most obvious and surficial aspects of issues and rarely think critically about the not so obvious facts and conditions that surround those issues? (pretty enlightened souinding am I not?)
News flash John, you can get a driver’s license without being a citizen.
I am adamantly opposed to ANY kind of election fraud including the kinds engaged in routinely by Republicons, like voter caging and directing people to the wrong polling places or citing the wrong voting day. And don’t get me started on the blackbox electronic voting. I oppose the law not because I want fraud, but because I believe in the right of citizens to vote without unnecessary impediments put in their way in this case intentionally.
Your notion that there is wide spread voter fraud in Wisconsin has been demonstrated to be false. It’s a lie. If you think the voter suppression law is justified, then you should be able to provide documentation that fraud has been a significant problem and that the law imposed meets the legal principal of proportionality. You will not be able to provide such documentation, but I invite you to try.
The very idea is absurd. Let’s apply a little critical thinking here. We’ve all heard the allegations of bus loads of voters showing up at the polls to supposedly vote illegally (as though using buses/vans to pick up voters and take them to the poll is uncommon or illegal). Yet they’ve never been caught! Imagine maintaining operational secrecy election after election while recruiting 100s/1000s of people to commit felonies at their own risk with no chance of tangible personal gain and no way of even guaranteeing success.
They all have to register at the poll and therefore, some how be provided with fake utility bills from across the ward with real addresses while not being poll workers who know their neighborhoods and neighbors. Or they have to vote in the name of lots of other people who are already registered but NONE of whome will go to vote before the “fraudsters” which would lead to arrest and notoriety when ONE of the fraudster shows up and asked to vote and gives the same and address as someone who has already voted. It must also be certain the none of these legit voters will show up afterward to vote, leading to widespread news stories about the DOCUMENTED fraud and an ensueing investigation.
And this would have to happen thousands of times across Wisconsin in a single day, seemlessly with no glitches, to have even the smallest chance of changing election results during the closest of elections. And this supposedly goes on year after year!? Remember, if even one gets caught, the whole operation is blown and that one while surely turn in the others and the ring leaders to investigators in a plea deal. My god the things the right-wing radio and the Fox News will convince you people to imagine and be afraid of!
If you really believe this stuff, why don’t you and other like-minded people get together and offer a substantial reward fro someone to come clean or infiltrate one of these operations? That begs the question, why hasn’t the Republican Party of Wisconsin not offered such an award? Hmmmm, could it be the party bosses know something you don’t, but want you to keep being a believer?
Republican AG JB Van Hollen conducted an extensive investigation into this matter and you know he would ahve LOVED to come up with the goods, but he didn’t, he found something like three cases. THREE! And this supposedly justifies imposing great difficulty on legitimate voters excercise their franchise? Only if your purposes cynically partisan and political.
Out of touch Sean,
The only reason you do not support voter I.D. is because it was introduced by republicans. Maybe another reason is that if you needed to get an I.D. you wouldn’t have time the time because you type too long to get a simple incorrect point across.
On another note, I don’t watch FOX news. I sometimes watch MSNBC to see how the ignorant and out of touch function.
Wrong John, I oppose voter supression for the exact reasons I’ve stated, not because of who introduced it. Furthermore, I already have an ID, this isn’t about ME. And finally, if you don’t like critical thinking and addressing the details and implications surrounding an issue that might not be apparent at first glance, but rather prefer simplisticness and superficiality, I can’t say I’m surprised. Perhaps that sentence was too long as well.
I notice you neglected to address or counter my arguments with anything of substance or even attempt to document the widespread voter fraud you been lead to believe in as justification for this onerous law. I consider that to be a de facto concession that you find my facts and reasoning unassailable. Case closed.
Yep case closed. After all the Voter I.D. law has been passed and a large majority of Wisconsin voters are very pleased with that.
Only the really smart ones that type blogs for a living disagree.
Us dumb M.E.’s will just keep chugging along.