Court: Wisconsin Must Probe Accessibility of Voter IDs
Source: NBC News
Court: Wisconsin Must Probe Accessibility of Voter IDs
by Zachary Roth
Sep 30 2016, 6:35 pm ET
A federal judge has ordered Wisconsin to investigate reports that some Department of Motor Vehicles offices are failing to make voter IDs easily available, after pledging last week to do so.
VoteRiders, a group that helps people get voter IDs, sent volunteers to ten DMV offices around the state to test the accessibility of voter IDs. In only three offices were volunteers correctly informed that they could get an ID quickly and without providing specific documents, the group told NBC News.
The group's findings raise fears that some would-be voters in the pivotal battleground state could be kept from the polls, despite the state's pledge that it would make IDs easy to get.
The VoteRiders investigation was first reported Thursday by The Nation, which posted an audio recording in which a Madison DMV clerk apparently failed to tell a Vote Riders staffer about the streamlined ID process. VoteRiders provided NBC News with an audio recording of a separate September 22 interaction between a DMV clerk in central Wisconsin and a VoteRiders volunteer, in which the clerk likewise failed to inform the volunteer about the streamlined process.
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/court-wisconsin-must-probe-accessibility-voter-ids-n657541
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)Chris Hayes is gonna cover it tonite on Andy Lack's network. We need so much help here in WI.
Judi Lynn
(160,219 posts)Wisconsin Got Caught Stiffing Citizens On Voter ID, And Now A Judge Wants Answers
News reports documenting troubling incidents of voter disenfranchisement led a court to act.
09/30/2016 05:21 pm ET
Cristian Farias
Legal Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
A federal judge on Friday ordered the state of Wisconsin to explain why it may not be complying with express instructions to freely provide voter identification cards to any and all qualified voters who request them.
An appeals court last month allowed Wisconsins voter ID requirement to remain in effect for the November elections, but instructed the states Division of Motor Vehicles to automatically mail a free photo ID to anyone who goes to the DMV to start the ID process ― even to voters who have only some of the required documents.
A pair of troubling news reports in The Nation and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published this week told a very different tale: The DMV was giving conflicting and sometimes erroneous information about the voter ID requirement ― turning away voters who otherwise should have been issued a voter card or given assurances that theyd get one in the mail.
VoteRiders, a group that helps people obtain voter IDs, made recordings detailing how DMV employees at different offices were inconsistent in their instructions to voters on how they may obtain a photo ID.
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wisconsin-voter-id_us_57eea74de4b082aad9bb19cd?section=us_politics