“Ninety-nine percent of people will need a photo ID to vote this year,” elections specialist David Buerger told Dodge County Democratic Party members Wednesday night. That likely was not news to the roughly 20 active Democrats assembled at the Dodge County Administration Building to hear Buerger, who works for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, discuss fine points of the state’s new, voter photo identification law. What may have been news, however, was Buerger’s briefing on the 1 percent of voters who will not need a picture ID to cast a ballot. For every rule, it seems, there is an exception or two.
Buerger said the GAB is a non-partisan, state organization that oversees the administration of state law and based upon state legislation passed last year, an acceptable photo ID now is required in order for its holder to vote. However, Buerger said for more than a decade, the state has maintained a list of “a few hundred” qualified voters who, for reasons of personal safety, seek a voter ID that carries neither their photo nor their address.
Thus protected, he said, a voter may visit the polls or vote by absentee ballot, without fear his or her address or identity will fall into the hands of a prior assailant via open-records searches or some other means. Buerger could not name a religion that prohibits its adherents from being photographed, but, because Wisconsin’s voter ID law incorporated terms from similar statutes in other states, he said the religious exception was retained.
Full Article: GAB explains voter ID.