Wisconsin Republicans Consider Law Changes to Make Voting More Complicated and Less Convenient… Again

MADISON, Wis. — The following are the statements of One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross regarding Senate and Assembly Republicans latest proposals, Senate Bill 459 and Assembly Bill 608, to make voting more complicated and less convenient for legal voters in Wisconsin:

Ending attacks on the rights of legal voters was apparently not among the GOP New Year’s resolutions

“Ending attacks on the rights of legal voters was apparently not among the GOP New Year’s resolutions.

“Legislative Republicans are moving forward with yet another attempt to make voting in Wisconsin more complicated and less convenient – and again for no good reason.

“We hear again and again that our laws on voting must be changed to combat ‘fraud’. Yet it is overwhelmingly the case that voter fraud is not being committed by the voters, but by the politicians here in this building.

“Senator Grothman, author of the bills being considered today, was forced to admit, ‘I can’t prove it’ when asked for the evidence of the fraud on which he based his support for ending Wisconsin’s four-decade old same day voter registration law.

“We ought not be making it harder for Wisconsin voters to exercise the most basic right they are guaranteed in our state constitution because of the unsubstantiated accusations of a cadre of legislators seeking political advantage.

“If we are going to fight the real fraud occurring in Wisconsin elections, the continuing and despicable efforts of partisan politicians to undermine the rights of legal voters to cast their vote and to have that vote counted must be stopped.”