With “electoral chaos” said to be reigning in Wisconsin following last week’s extraordinary ruling by three Republican appointees to the federal bench, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed an Emergency Petition for Rehearing En Banc [PDF] before the full U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeal.
The ACLU is seeking the immediate reinstatement of the District Court’s injunction of the state Republicans’ Photo ID voting law. The lower court had previously found the statute to be, in no uncertain terms, in violation of both the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.
When they later file briefs, the ACLU and other attorneys representing the plaintiffs in Frank v. Walker will undoubtedly go into greater depth to explain how the three GOP members of the 7th Circuit panel erroneously interpreted the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Crawford vs. Marion County Elections Board and how the WI law, “Act 23”, is “materially different from” the Photo ID law passed by Indiana Republicans and approved by SCOTUS in 2008.
The emergency filing, however, zeroes in on what the ACLU describes as chaos and disenfranchisement that will likely be caused by an “extraordinary decision” last week, which, they say, seeks to effectuate a “slapdash implementation” of a radical and complex change in the Badger State’s election law just seven weeks prior to the November 2014 general election…
‘6,000 Photo IDs Per Day’?!
By its express terms, Wisconsin’s Act 23 contemplated it would take between eight to sixteen months to roll out. The ACLU observed:
Pointing to the District Court’s factual findings, the ACLU added that the “DMV has only 92 offices statewide…and in 48 counties representing over a quarter of the state’s population, those offices are open only two days a week for a total of ten hours. DMV is simply incapable of processing a substantial number of applications from the 300,000 registered voters without ID.”
Walker’s Gamesmanship?
The new filing suggests that, with Republican Governor Scott Walker’s re-election hanging in the balance, the state may have purposely dragged its feet in implementing changes that were imposed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, when, on July 31, 2014, it lifted then-pending state court injunctions. (Before the recent decisions at the state Supreme Court and by the three-judge federal appellate panel, the law had been repeatedly struck down at both the state and federal levels.)
Even the highly partisan Wisconsin Supreme Court recognized “the ‘severe burdens’ imposed by Act 23,” according to the ACLU. In an effort to salvage the fatally flawed statute, that Court directed that the WI DMV to “make free IDs available to those who otherwise had to pay for documents like birth certificates to get ID.”
The state, according to the ACLU’s emergency filing, delayed any official action on that WI Supreme Court directive until September 12, when, during oral arguments before the 7th Circuit panel, Walker’s legal counsel revealed, for the first time, that the “DMV had issued new emergency rules that purport to address the identified deficiencies.”
Those new rules became effective this week, Monday, September 15, for the very first time, just seven (7) weeks before Election Day.
The DMV estimates that, under the new rules, it will take eight (8) weeks to verify identification of voters who were born in other states. “Almost 47% of eligible Milwaukee voters without ID were born outside Wisconsin. This population is disproportionately comprised of Blacks and Latinos, who are more likely than whites to lack both ID and a document needed to get ID, such as birth certificates,” according to the ACLU petition.
The ACLU also charges that the all-Republican, three-judge 7th Circuit panel based its decision to immediately stay the lower court’s injunction upon the new ID rules that Walker’s attorneys filed with the court after oral argument. The new DMV processes for granting IDs were not provided to the plaintiffs earlier, in what amounts to a denial of due process. The plaintiffs, therefore, had no opportunity to respond, and point out the irreparable harm to voters who presently lack the requisite ID.
Breaking Precedent
“Supreme Court precedent and other Circuits,” the ACLU forcefully argues, “uniformly caution against such eleventh-hour changes to the election laws, even where those courts have approved those changes for future elections.” Indeed, the Supreme Court has admonished our federal intermediate appellate courts “against last-minute reversals of lower court election law rulings.” An order to stay an injunction in such cases also requires a clear showing of irreparable harm to the party seeking the stay.
Permitting the election procedures under which Wisconsin has been operating “to remain in place for one more election” will not “result in irreparable harm to the state,” the Emergency Petition argues.
The fact that Walker may not receive the majority of votes lawfully cast in a fair and free election, it would seem, is a far cry from what our courts can consider to be “irreparable harm.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/your-guide-to-thursdays-big-vote-and-count.1410974461
funny not a peep about the manipulation of SCOTLAND INDEPENDENCE here.
not so funny that
behold,
assuming the chain of custody from precinct to central counting station was secure,,,,,,it seems scotland had an open,transparent election and count
paper ballots counted and compared to “how many voted” and then publicly sorted into yes , no piles and publicly counted, publicly announced
it looks a lot like what we as Americans should strive for….if you know something different,tell us
Hey you tony scalia, why do sooooooooooo many of you creeps keep settling at the top…it looks like an upside down pyramid to me. I think you have a POLLUTED understanding of OUR god.
Well hell, at least i’m kinda close to the topic…but for some reason the need to speak this truth keeps coming…
So anyway tony, do you understand like I do with my biology back round what parasites ultimately do… they eat their host and quite frequently out of existence. Good luck to all of the US with your sick shit.
I had to get an updated drivers license because I moved. It cost me $35. I could have waited until next year when my license expires to get a new one but I did not want to be turned away at the polls. I had to pay a $35 poll tax.
How many more people will be disenfranchised because their current ID is not current with where they live? Do you think there may be a few people who have moved around in Wisconsin because of loss of homes, getting a new job, losing a job, empty nesters, unstable home situation, moving out of mom’s basement, etc.?
I don’t understand how Walker and the Republicans can think this is a long term win for them. If they disenfranchise thousands of younger college age (or young adults just getting started), they will piss off an entire generation to the Republican party. They were the ones who kept me from voting. If this law stays in effect through the election we should make sure everyone knows who to blame , over and over again.
I guess the Republicans are that short sighted.
In reply to comment No. 6: Nowhere have I read any advisements by the GAB or Walker’s minions that a Wisconsin driver’s license has to have your correct address. This is yet another bomb drop!
I am assuming the worst from Walker and his minions. His rationale would be it would eliminate the transient citizen who moves regularly and is poor, another Dem voting block.
If he is willing to alienate himself from future voters why not the same for voters who have lost their homes, or are not “responsible” enough to get their state ID updated.
BTW I still do not have my new drivers license. I have to wait 2 weeks to receive it. I was told the reason for the wait is that the new license will have extra “security” measures built in so it has to be done by a private firm. (Do you smell another Walker donor?) I have been given a sheet of paper with info that resembles my drivers license. Would that suffice at the polls? I don’t know.
The cost of our licenses has stayed the same but license now has extra “security” in it. Who is paying for these extra “security measures? Is that another part of the state budget shortfall?
Anti-Family Scott Walker is strongly penalizing those who get married with a name change included.
Running for Governor – “Good luck voting under nitpicking rules if you married and changed your name, you don’t have time to find an open DMV to obtain a corrected ID even if you knew to do so, you suckers had your chance in 2012 ha ha.”