The state Supreme Court won’t reconsider its ruling last summer upholding the state’s requirement that voters show photo ID at the polls. The brief order issued this week by Wisconsin’s highest court denied a request by minority groups to block the voter ID law. Despite that ruling, the requirement won’t be in effect for the Nov. 4 election. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order earlier this month temporarily blocking the law while lawsuits against it wind through the federal courts. After that setback from the high federal court, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said last week that he was giving up on his efforts to reinstate the law ahead of the upcoming election. Voters need a score card to track the dizzying rounds of litigation against the law and the dramatic reversals in those cases over the past two years. The request denied Wednesday by the seven-person state Supreme Court was made by two local minority groups who say the law violates their constitutional right to vote.
On Sept. 19, the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera asked the high state court to keep the law from taking effect this fall. The groups said there wasn’t enough time for elections officials to implement the law without “confusion and disenfranchisement.” The groups were not asking that the law be blocked for future elections.
The state Supreme Court said that the plaintiffs had already used up the 20 days that they had to ask the justices to reconsider last summer’s decision. The court also said that the request for reconsideration was moot because of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling blocking the law.
Full Article: State high court: no reason to reconsider its voter ID ruling.