Is There an Omnibus-load of New GOP Attacks on Voters’ Rights Headed Our Way?

MADISON, Wis. — In a weekend television appearance, Rep. Duey Stroebel, author of a bill to restrict early voting in Wisconsin, revealed that his proposal along with other GOP sponsored attacks on voting rights could be rolled into an omnibus package of anti-voter legislation.

“Republicans have mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to restrict voter rights in Wisconsin that has only one goal, protect their grip on power,” according to One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross.

He continued, “As they continue to pursue more of the same policies that have failed to create jobs and that unfairly benefit the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the rest of us, it’s no wonder they’re trying to make it more difficult for average folks to hold them accountable at the ballot box.”

In March, One Wisconsin Now released a report documenting a laundry list of anti-voter initiatives that would make voting more inconvenient to outright impossible for thousands of legal Wisconsin voters. After the report was released, Senator Mary Lazich introduced another series of bills that would make it easier to throw out the votes cast by legal voters based on minor clerical errors.

It was also recently revealed that potentially hundreds of thousands of records associated with the GOP’s redrawing of state legislative districts, which allowed them to gain seats despite receiving over 174,000 fewer votes, were deleted from state computers, possibly illegally.

Ross concluded, “What’s so nefarious about the GOP’s continued scheming to make it harder to vote for workers, student and seniors is that Election Day is the one day everyone, whether they are rich or poor, young or old, is equal. It’s time for the GOP to start respecting our democracy and stop trying to dismantle it with another round of anti-voter legislation.”