Repug AZ voter suppression is amateur compared to Kockenshtan WI

[boutons_deux]

Expect Wisconsin’s Primary to be a Total Nightmare

When Wisconsin Democrats vote in their state’s presidential primary on April 5, thousands of them may be turned away after waiting in line for hours.

The voter ID law Governor Scott Walker signed in 2011 is one of the most stringent in the country, in that it severely limits the types of photo ID accepted at voting precincts.

As ThinkProgress’ Alice Ollstein pointed out, veterans and college students are unable to vote (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/02/17/3750519/wisconsin-voter-id-primary/) with the identification cards provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs and state universities. The coming presidential primary will be the first major election in which voters will have to contend with the strict new law, with critics resoundingly agreeing that it has a dampening effect on turnout. In the most recent Supreme Court election, turnout was desperately low, down to as little as 8 percent (http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/Voter-turnout-estimated-at-8-9-for-Eau-Claire-369042641.html) in Eau Claire County.

“I definitely see the new I.D. requirement as a deterrent,” University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire freshman Nathan Gilger told WEAU (http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/Voter-ID-requirement-gets-mixed-reviews-in-spring-election-369063161.html). “It feels more like a chore to vote.”

College students make up one of Bernie Sanders’ largest demographics, as the Vermont senator has captured a wide majority of the 18-29 voter demographic in nearly all primary and caucus states to date, even in states which he lost to Hillary Clinton by wide margins.

For example, young voters went for Bernie by a 59-41 margin (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/primaries/AR) in Clinton’s home state of Arkansas on Super Tuesday. And in Florida’s March 15 primary, where the former Secretary of State beat Sanders by a nearly 2-1 margin, Sanders still captured 64 percent (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/primaries/FL) of voters between ages 18 and 29. College students in Wisconsin intending to vote for Sanders, however, may find themselves hamstrung by the state’s voter ID law.

When the controversial voter ID bill was passed, it was done so with the intention of allocating roughly

$500,000 in public funds for a statewide education campaign letting voters know what the ID requirements were ahead of time. However,

this money was never appropriated (http://www.salon.com/2016/03/26/this_crisis_is_bigger_than_arizona_behold_the_trav esty_that_is_wisconsin_partner/),

meaning thousands of voters will go to the polls largely in the dark about what identification they need to have in order to participate in the Democratic process.

Opponents of the law argue that the new ID requirements may disenfranchise up to 350,000 voters (http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/DeclarationofMVHoodIII.pdf) in the 2016 election cycle.

Wisconsin has 86 pledged delegates at stake, and it is seen as a must-win state for Sanders’ surging campaign.

http://usuncut.com/politics/wisconsin-voter-id-nightmare/

Repugs are nasty, cheating mofos. And as with AZ, there will be no penalty for intentionally screwing up, suppressing voting.

Thanks, SCOTUS Repugs.

[boutons_deux]

This crisis is bigger than Arizona: Behold the travesty that is Wisconsin’s new voter ID law

Friday will mark the first major election voters are required to present pre-approved identification. It gets worse


the Government Accountability Board decided against making a formal funding request to the legislature, which had already introduced a bill to dismantle the agency (http://www.wpr.org/once-symbol-bipartisanship-government-accountability-board-targeted-overhaul).

Two days after the meeting, the Wisconsin Assembly voted to replace the nonpartisan board with two partisan agencies by the end of June 2016. Since 2012, Republicans have attacked the board after it investigated, among other things, whether Governor Walker coordinated with outside political groups (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/gab-board-oversaw-john-doe-probe-actions-leader-tells-assembly-speaker-b99433074z1-289815481.html) during the recount battle that gripped the state. Judicial orders stalled the investigation, and the board eventually took itself out of the probe. Walker, cleared of wrongdoing, survived the scandal.

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/26/this_crisis_is_bigger_than_arizona_behold_the_trav esty_that_is_wisconsin_partner/

Just like KS Repugs saying they plan to remove any KS Supreme Court judge who rules against a Repug law.

[Splits]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/todd-allbaugh-voter-id-wisconsin-gop

Ex-Staffer: Wisconsin GOPers Cheered Voter ID Bill For What It 'Could Do For Us’


A former top staffer for a Republican legislator in Wisconsin suggested this week that GOP legislators were motivated to pass the state’s tough photo voter ID law because they believed it would help them at the ballot box, an account he expanded on in a Wednesday interview with TPM.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff for state Sen. Dale Schultz (R) until the legislator retired in 2015, first made the claims in a Tuesday Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=221323231557115&id=100010383187417&pnref=story) that caught the attention of national voting rights experts. (http://electionlawblog.org/?p=81614)

In the post, Allbaugh recalled a 2011 caucus meeting of GOP state senators about the voter ID legislation. Allbaugh said during that meeting, some Republicans were “giddy” over the legislation's "ramifications" and the effect it would have on minority and young voters.

Once he left politics, Allbaugh opened a Madison, Wisconsin, coffee shop, where TPM reached him over the phone and he elaborated on those claims.

“It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, ‘We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us,’” Allbaugh said. “The phrase ‘voter suppression’ was never used, but it was certainly clear what was meant.”

While Schultz, Allbaugh’s former boss, has notably spoken out (http://thevotingnews.com/dale-schultz-i-am-not-willing-to-defend-them-anymore-capitol-times/) against more recent restrictions on voting, he voted for the 2011 bill. According to Allbaugh, at this point in the point of meeting, Schultz brought up his own concerns with the voter ID legislation.

“He was immediately shot down by another senator who said, ‘What I am interested in is getting results here and using the power while we have it, because if the Democrats were in control they would do they same thing to us, so I want to use it while we have it,'” Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh said Schultz left the meeting in frustration after that, while he stayed behind to continue taking notes.

“It left a pit in my stomach to think that a party that I had worked for for years and years and years was literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right,” Allbaugh said.

Allbaugh told TPM he was stirred to write the initial Facebook post after one of his young employees, who had moved from California to Wisconsin, was unable to vote Tuesday. Albaugh said that because the employee's California ID did not meet the state’s requirements to vote, he was told he needed to show his California birth certificate, which the employee was not going to be able to produce in time.

“When you see the real world ramification, it just sickens you,” Allbaugh said. “I have to tell people what’s going on.”

Schultz was asked about Allbaugh’s Facebook post on Wednesday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/jury-is-still-out-on-voter-id-after-first-big-test-b99701512z1-374789941.html). The former lawmaker said he would not discuss what happened in a closed door meeting, but praised Allbaugh for his "honesty and integrity,” which Schultz said were “beyond reproach.”

By coincidence, after Allbaugh’s Facebook post went up, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) told a local TV station (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/glenn-grothman-voter-id-helps-gop) that the Wisconsin photo ID law would help Republicans win in November’s election. Grothman served in the state Senate from 2005-2015.

Allbaugh said he didn’t want to name names from his account of the 2011 caucus meeting, but he confirmed that Grothman was in the room.

“He has outed himself," Allbaugh said. "He was one of those that was saying these things."

Grothman's office on Wednesday night did not immediately return a request for comment from TPM

[Splits]

Dp

[boutons_deux]

Ex-staffer: Wisconsin GOP intended ID law to disenfranchise Dems

A day after Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law helped cause long lines at the polls and kept some would-be voters from casting a ballot at all, a former GOP staffer told MSNBC his party actively intended for it to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to a Republican state senator, said in an interview Wednesday that at a closed-door caucus meeting in 2011, GOP lawmakers openly discussed how the the ID bill would hit minorities and students hardest.

“One of the senators said, ‘We need to think about the ramifications here, what this means, particularly in Milwaukee and college campuses across the state, what that could mean for us,’” said Allbaugh.

“What I’m interested in here is winning, and we need to use the opportunity, because if Democrats had the power to do it to us, they’d do it,” another senator said, according to Allbaugh.

“I was in the room when this thing was conceived and birthed,” Allbaugh added. “Some bills work differently in reality than they were intended. This one worked exactly as intended.”

Allbaugh, who now runs a Madison coffee shop, declined to name the senators who spoke. But on Tuesday night, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who was a state senator at the time, admitted that the law will help the GOP.

“Hillary Clinton is one of the weakest candidates they ever put up, and now we have photo ID, and I think photo ID is gonna make a little bit of a difference as well,” Grothman told an interviewer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta0W8_qn0Aw). On Wednesday, Grothman said: “We feel if there’s less fraud it’ll help Republican candidates. We can’t prove it, but that’s what we think.”

Allbaugh confirmed that Grothman was in the room for the 2011 caucus meeting. “He outed himself,” he said, referring to Grothman’s comments Tuesday. “People should take the congressman at his word.”

Grothman has denied (http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/jury-is-still-out-on-voter-id-after-first-big-test-b99701512z1-374789941.html) to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he made the comments. “Either his memory is faulty or he’s outright lying,” Grothman said, referring to Allbaugh.

Dale Schultz, the then-senator for whom Allbaugh worked, didn’t respond to MSNBC’s request for comment on Allbaugh’s coments. But Schultz, a moderate who voted for the ID law, told the Journal-Sentinel that Allbaugh’s “honesty and integrity are beyond reproach.”

Allbaugh originally described the caucus meeting in a Facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=221323231557115&id=100010383187417&pnref=story) Tuesday that drew widespread attention. Without naming names, he wrote that

"some GOP senators were “giddy” about the law’s ability to suppress Democratic votes. "

Allbaugh told MSNBC that he was inspired to write the post after a young employee at his coffee shop found himself disenfranchised by the ID law because he has an out-of-state driver’s license.

Allbaugh’s revelations came a day after Wisconsin’s ID law, which was championed and signed by Gov. Scott Walker, caused problems in the state’s primary elections. In Green Bay, some voters waited over two hours to vote, a problem the local election administrator blamed on the law. “It just plain slows things down,” he told MSNBC.

College students faced particular hurdles, with many needing to first wait in long lines to obtain a voting ID before heading to the polls to vote. Several universities reported lines of over an hour, according to Election Protection, a group that monitors voting. An estimated 300,000 Wisconsinites don’t have the ID needed.

Some argue that Tuesday’s record turnout suggests concerns about the ID law are overblown. In atweet (https://twitter.com/JoeNBC/status/717420501203861505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) sent Tuesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said opponents of the law should stop “whining,” citing the high turnout.

Thursday morning, a federal court heard arguments from the ACLU and others who are seeking to have the law’s ID requirements softened. An earlier challenge to the law was rejected by a federal appeals court.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ex-staffer-wisconsin-gop-intended-id-law-disenfranchise-dems

Some of us smart people KNOW the Repugs have been lying about "voter fraud" and their dedication to defending the sanctity of the vote.

Do you stupid fuckers finally know you've been lied to, AND you've been lying about "voter fraud"?