Compiled by Courier Staff
State Senators Lena Taylor, Chris Larson and Spencer Coggs
“On Tuesday, May 17, 2011 the Wisconsin Senate debated the Voter Suppression Bill; more commonly called AB 7, the Voter ID Bill. “This is a deliberate and calculated attempt by Republicans to confuse the public and make it more difficult for people of color, seniors, college students and the disabled to exercise their right to vote,” said Senator Spencer Coggs.
Senate Democrats debated well into the night, knowing full well that the Republicans had enough votes to pass the bill. Senator Coggs introduced and urged the Senate to adopt five amendments that would reduce the negative impact of the Republican’s voter restrictions on Wisconsin residents and in particular, voters of Milwaukee ’s central city.
Sen. Coggs said, “My amendments would have increased resident’s access to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to obtain a state-issued ID card, require maps to be posted in Milwaukee polling places to clearly show voters their proper polling locations in order for them to vote, return to a 10- day residency requirement rather than the proposed 28 days, allow student IDs to be used during students’ college years, and add $200,000 to assist the public education campaign.”
Sen. Coggs went on to say that this bill is specifically a burden on residents in Milwaukee County, because only 47 percent of African American adults, and 43 percent of Hispanic adults have current valid driver’s licenses, which is a primary identification card required by this bill, and that 23 percent of Wisconsin residents aged 65 or older don’t have a state photo ID which is another requirement of the bill. These disenfranchised groups represent nearly 1 million people across the state of Wisconsin.
“This is a bad bill that will only serve to disenfranchise some of our most vulnerable residents and turn Wisconsin away from being a state with laws that encouraged people to vote to one having some of the toughest voter restrictions in the country,” said Coggs.
Coggs is confident that, although the bill will pass the legislature, there will be a court challenge to the constitutionality of the provisions that restrict the guaranteed right to vote incorporated in our Wisconsin constitution.
Senator Lena Taylor blasted her fellow Republican colleagues on the massive disenfranchisement the Voter Suppression Bill will have on the countless number of minorities, elderly, disabled, and low-income families around Wisconsin. “I am extremely saddened as I witnessed a total disregard for disenfranchised people across this state and especially the City of Milwaukee where this will have the most impact. The disenfranchisement of these minority communities in our state and cities is disgraceful and a big step backwards in the civil rights of all people” says Senator Taylor.
The Voter Suppression Bill will have life long effects on people who are not able to sign a poll list or pay for an ID due to disability, financial challenges or mobility. This bill also affects universities severely by requiring the campuses to issue an ID every two years, a cost to the defunded UW-System under GOP leadership, thereby mandating higher spending.
“As a community, we need to come together and be ahead of what’s coming by helping the disabled and to encourage everyone to get a valid ID in order to preserve their right to vote. This is a vital effort to prevent disenfranchisement to hundreds of thousands and especially to select the right representation. I will be doing everything in my power to help everyone that would be affected by this bill, I ask you to spread the word and help your friends and family to secure their right to vote and to share any experiences that disenfranchise you or their right to vote.” Taylor added.
Senator Chris Larson also joined in on the opposition of the Voter ID Bill. With a cost of over $7 million, Assembly Bill 7 would put up road blocks for those wishing to cast their vote in our democracy, increase the residency requirement from 10 days to 28 consecutive days, and eliminate straightparty voting.
“I will not stand by silently while the rights of students, the elderly, people with disabilities, the homeless and all of us across the state of Wisconsin are stripped away,” said Sen. Larsen. “This bill creates additional barriers intended to restrict the rights of eligible voters from participating in our elections and it needs to be changed.”
Senate Democrats offered dozens of amendments to curb the all-out attack on the rights of eligible voters and reconcile differences between federal and state laws, each of which were tabled by Senate Republicans. Some of the introduced amendments would have ensured that DMV centers offer extended hours prior to an election, provided an appropriation for a public information campaign, preserved the voting rights of college students and people with disabilities, and eliminated the fees for identification cards and the documents needed to obtain identification cards for qualified electors.
“My colleagues and I will continue doing everything we can to offer reasonable improvements to this abomination of a bill that seeks to prevent, rather than encourage, eligible voters from participating in our democracy,” said Sen. Larson.
On one hand according to much of the state’s GOP agenda, the state is broke, but creating a bill that adds to the budget for something that is clearly a political strategy for future elections is okay. Once again, the needs of Wisconsin and its students, working class, middle class and poor are taking a back seat to the national GOp agenda.
Implementing the bill would cost more than $7 million over the next two years, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Much of the cost – almost $4 million – can be attributed to a provision of the bill that would require the Department of Transportation to provide free IDs to those who ask for them. The IDs are being provided to ensure the law does not include an unconstitutional poll tax; people would still have to pay for driver’s licenses.
Voters would also be required to sign poll books when they vote, which supporters say would make it easier to prove cases of voter fraud. The bill also ends straight-party voting for everyone but military and overseas voters.
In another change, people could vote from their polling place only if they had lived in that voting ward for at least 28 days before an election. Now, voters have to live in their wards for 10 days before an election.
People would be able to vote by absentee ballot in clerks’ offices for the two weeks before the election, less than half the time they can do so now. Voting in clerks’ offices would end on the Friday before the election, instead of the day before the election, as it does now.