As state attorneys try to persuade a judge to keep the voter ID law intact, Democrats on the Elections Commission are looking for new lawyers. U.S. District Judge James Peterson in July struck down limits on early voting and ordered the state to reform its system for making sure people have voting credentials under the voter ID law. In recent weeks, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and others have reported on Division of Motor Vehicles workers giving people inaccurate and incomplete information about their ability to get voting credentials. That prompted those suing the state to make a renewed push to overturn the voter ID law. Peterson has ordered a hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday. Now, two of the Democratic members of the Elections Commission are seeking a new lawyer to represent them because they say GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office would not file a report with the court on their behalf.
“Given the DOJ’s refusal to even honor a simple request from these named defendants to timely provide their report to this court, and in light of the DOJ’s attempt in its October 7, 2016, report to spin and even usurp the activities of the (commission) in furtherance of its litigation strategy, and because the (commission) was expressly created by the state to be an agency governed equally by the Republican and Democratic parties, we respectfully ask the court to order the DOJ to immediately assign these named defendants an attorney from the DOJ to appear on their behalf in this litigation … to represent their views,” commissioners Mark Thomsen and Ann Jacobs wrote in a letter that was unsealed late Tuesday.
The two wanted a report they wrote to be filed with the court because they do not believe the state has been clear about the shortcomings of its efforts to alert the public about how people can get an ID if they don’t have birth certificates or other key documents.
Full Article: New lawyers sought in voter ID fight.