The Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee has passed a substitute version of its voter suppression bill 12-2. They call is a voter ID bill, but really, it is all about keeping people down. It still looks like the most restrictive voter ID bill in the country -- and by its terms it would go into effect before the recall elections scheduled for July.
This is a bill that was modeled on ALEC model legislation. It requires that all voters show photo IDs when they vote, with certain exceptions. The exceptions include those who vote from abroad, including military personnel, and residents of nursing homes, retirement homes, community-based residential facilities, adult family homes, or residential care apartment complexes who vote with the assistance of Special Voting Deputies or whose votes are witnessed by and the manager of the facility. (I'm simplifying this a bit.)
Only four other states require photo IDs. Under this law, the only acceptable IDs would be a driver's license, state ID, military ID, passport, naturalization papers, tribal ID, or a college or university ID that expires no later than 2 years after the election in which it is used.
The ID requirements were modified from an earlier incarnation of the bill. An earlier version would have required that the college and university IDs include the birth date and addresses of the individuals named on the identification cards, something which no schools do for security concerns. (Many of the cards are used as pass keys for dorms and other building access; they are also used to transfer funds from the individual's account to university accounts. The Republican drafters did not bother to find out this information when they first drafted this amendment.) For the University of Wisconsin system, adding the expiration information to current cards would cost $1.1 million.
Finally, the bill and amendment that passed in the Joint Finance Committee require electors to sign the poll list and to be a resident of the ward in which they are voting for 28 days prior to and election. It would be effective with the first election following the signing of the bill. That election will be the recall elections in July.
This is a real disaster for democracy, and will be very difficult for the local clerks to handle. As the current recount demonstrated, education is needed at every level in the election process in Wisconsin. Rushing the voter suppression bill through in order to preserve a corrupt Republican majority represents yet another low in the apparently bottomless pit that is the Joint Finance Committee.
Updated by Cranes4ever at Tue May 10, 2011 at 07:03 AM CDT
To those below who think it is easy to get an ID -- it is not. One of things that makes this bill so restrictive is that the IDs must come from the state Division of Motor Vehicles. In some counties there is only one office, which is open one day per week. The bill makes it harder for counties to deputize voter registrars as well.