The War on Voting Continues in Committee
As expected, Assembly Republicans continued their war on voting today. In their crosshairs is the decades-old practice allowing same day voter registration. In many ways this tradition has helped to produce voter participation numbers that are the envy of most other states. Republicans on the Elections and Constitutional Law committee are ignoring the Constitution. Sacred rights be damned!
Clearly the Republicans on the committee are targeting the votes of the young, the elderly and those with lower incomes. These groups are most negatively affected by this kind of abusive legislation. Also, they are conveniently groups that don’t traditionally favor conservative ideology or candidates.
As expected, Assembly Republicans continued their war on voting today. In their crosshairs is the decades-old practice allowing same day voter registration. In many ways this tradition has helped to produce voter participation numbers that are the envy of most other states. Republicans on the Elections and Constitutional Law committee are ignoring the Constitution. Sacred rights be damned!
Clearly the Republicans on the committee are targeting the votes of the young, the elderly and those with lower incomes. These groups are most negatively affected by this kind of abusive legislation. Also, they are conveniently groups that don’t traditionally favor conservative ideology or candidates. But it would be a mistake to think that these are the only voting rights being threatened. In 2006 one out of six voters in Wisconsin registered to vote at the polling place on election day. The ease for them to exercise their right to vote has also been attacked in today’s party line 5-3 vote.
Committee Republicans once again trotted out their old standby, claiming that this drastic measure was an attempt to curb alleged voter fraud. Although they constantly parrot the same false claims every election year, reality and the actual facts of the matter prove just the opposite. Quite simply, there is no widespread voter fraud problem in Wisconsin. Not only has conservative U.S. Attorney Biskupic stated this, but in-depth and independent studies have also verified it. One recent study found that the rate of voter fraud in Wisconsin in the 2004 election was a minute 0.0006 percent! Clearly these facts do not matter to those that supported this legislation; they have their talking points and their partisan plan ready. Unfortunately it is a plan that attacks our most basic rights by declaring war on voting in Wisconsin.