American Prospect: "Curbing Voting Rights in Wisconsin" (ALEC, of course)

Curbing Voting Rights in Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, Republicans continue their efforts to hobble the state Democratic party with a new voter ID law.
Alexander Zaitchik | May 4, 2011 | web only


On Tuesday morning, Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Elections Committee approved a controversial bill containing major changes to state voting law. If passed in the full state assembly, where it could see a vote as early as next week, the law would end same-day registration, eliminate the straight-ticket voting option on ballots and require voters to present a state-issued photo ID at the polls.

This last provision -- which includes strict guidelines as to what constitutes acceptable identification -- puts Wisconsin in league with more than two dozen states where Republican lawmakers are pushing so-called Voter ID bills that they claim address the phantom menace of "voter fraud." It has also fueled allegations that Gov. Scott Walker is less concerned with sound policy than with weakening the political power of key Democratic constituencies.

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The true purpose of such bills, says a growing chorus of critics, is the stealth disenfranchisement of poor, elderly, student and minority voters. The fact that these groups include important Democratic constituencies does much to explain the party-line support for Voter ID bills in Wisconsin and around the country. A study by One Wisconsin Now, the state's leading online progressive organizing group, found that more than half of black male Wisconsinites do not have a state-issued photo ID. (This number rises to nearly 80 percent among those aged 18-24.) The same is true of nearly a fifth of the state's white population and nearly half of its Latino residents, with the numbers rising sharply after age 65.

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The forces shaping the push for Voter ID understand well the continuing need to sound "high-minded." The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which coaches conservative lawmakers on how to craft and sell business-friendly bills on issues ranging from education to energy, has drawn up model Voter ID legislation that Republican legislators in many states have used as a starting point. (Strangely listed under the Homeland Security section on ALEC's model legislation page, the model bill is called the Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act.) A June 2009 article in the organization's monthly magazine, Inside ALEC, offered detailed advice on how Republicans can advocate for Voter ID bills in ways that "broaden the appeal" and reduce the effectiveness of court challenges. At one point, the article explains that states need not "show prior evidence of impersonation fraud" to justify voter identification amendments. In other words, legislators should proceed with their public cries about voter fraud even when the only fraud in sight is the one staring back at them in the mirror.