We believe Wisconsin’s new voter ID law is overly burdensome on voters and that the state is simply unequipped to administer this law and ensure legal voters will not be disenfranchised or subject to a poll tax. We continue to confer with legal counsel about what potential legal challenges can be made against Gov. Scott Walker’s voter suppression bill.
The bill originally was based on Indiana’s voter ID bill. According to the U.S. Supreme Court case upholding Indiana’s bill, the lower court found that “99 percent of Indiana’s voting age population already possesses the necessary photo identification to vote under the requirements.” The Supreme Court concluded that Indiana’s law was constitutional, specifically because so few Indianans were without the state-issued photo identification.
[According to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study (PDF),] Wisconsin’s population is substantially less likely to have a state-issued identification.
… Republican claims of widespread voter irregularity have long been debunked. After a two-year investigation, Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has found only 11 potentially improper votes cast out of nearly 3 million votes in 2008. The former Wisconsin U.S. attorney under George W. Bush, Steve Biskupic, concluded after a similar investigation that there was no widespread voter fraud. The majority of charges in all of these cases involved felons who were technically ineligible to vote.
Full Article: Scot Ross: Why voter ID bill may be unconstitutional.