David Michael Miller
You don’t have to tell Ken Mayer that this has been an unusual election year. But while many people are fretting about who will be the next president, Mayer is concerned more about the process by which he or she will be elected.
Accusations of election rigging, stricter voter ID laws and fears of voter intimidation have people like Mayer, an election law expert and political science professor at UW-Madison, fearing for the worst when voters head to the polls on Nov. 8.
“The combination of massive changes in election administration, restrictive voting rules, a scaling back of federal monitoring and enforcement efforts, and the completely unwarranted claims of one of the presidential candidates that fraud is going to be rampant, is unfortunately a toxic recipe for problems,” Mayer says.
But Mayer says that voters need to remember just one simple thing when heading to the polls: They need a state-approved photo ID in order to vote.
Acceptable ID cards include those issued by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the U.S. military, as well as a U.S. passport. Also acceptable are photo IDs issued by a federally recognized Indian tribe in Wisconsin or an accredited Wisconsin university (provided it includes a date of issuance, signature of student and an expiration date no later than two years after date of issuance).
UW-Madison IDs aren’t valid for voting, but students can obtain a secondary ID at Union South that is valid for voting. And on Election Day, every on-campus polling location will be printing out paper IDs that can be used for voting, provided students have their regular ID.
Mayer worries that many people remain confused about what is acceptable.
“When a law is being rolled out or there is uncertainty about what’s required, people don’t realize they need an ID, or they don’t understand what type of ID they will have to show,” says Mayer. “It’s likely that there are going to be some people that are prepared to show an ID but it’s not going to be the right kind. It’s also likely that there will be a lot of people who don’t realize they have the necessary ID and don’t even try to vote.”
That’s where the city and county clerks’ offices, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (one of two agencies that replaced the Government Accountability Board), and organizations like the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin come in.
Since the start of the year, the commission has focused its work on voter education and outreach with the Bring It to the Ballot website, and a $250,000 public information campaign funded by the Joint Finance Committee including ads and PSAs about voter ID.
A court recently ordered the commission to ramp up its efforts to communicate the law’s requirements to the public. U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled in October that while he could not suspend voter ID, state agencies like the DMV needed to better explain how to get an ID to vote.
“Judge Peterson’s recent ruling focused on the DMV’s ID petition process, which allows individuals to obtain a temporary receipt that can be used for voting even when they do not have the necessary documents,” explains commission administrator Mike Haas.
In response, the commission has printed more than 13,000 info sheets explaining the ID petition process. The sheets are being distributed throughout the state by voter advocacy agencies like the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.
Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters, says on Election Day her group will be watching to make sure local officials adhere to the law. Kaminski will be managing nearly 250 trained poll observers covering 500 polling places across the state.
“We tell them what to watch for,” says Kaminski. “We want to know how these restrictive new laws and procedures are affecting voters in the voting process. We also have them looking for any signs of disenfranchisement, where somebody who is a qualified citizen is not able to vote because of a new law or because an election official isn’t administering the law properly.”
Kaminski is especially concerned about voter intimidation.
“Voter intimidation is illegal; if you see people leaving because the polling place is not orderly and they’re frightened by that, that’s intimidation, and it’s illegal,” Kaminski says.
While the League’s poll observers will be all over the state, they will be concentrated in areas where more people tend to register on Election Day, such as poor neighborhoods in cities and on college campuses.
Mayer says it’s no coincidence that these laws affect certain demographic groups more than others.
“Voter ID laws have almost invariably been enacted by Republican state governments, and they also invariably require IDs that certain demographic groups — minorities, the poor, elderly, students — are less likely to have,” he says. “I don’t think it’s remotely a stretch to argue that there is an overt partisan intent here — which is to make it more difficult for certain types of people to vote, and it’s not an accident that those groups are disproportionately Democratic.”
Regardless of the intent behind the voter ID laws, Mayer says they do little to protect against the voter fraud.
“The preface to all of this has to be that these laws solve nothing. They do not make any difference in the integrity of the election process because the types of vote fraud they are designed to prevent happen in vanishingly small numbers,” says Mayer. “So the notion that there is substantial voter impersonation is simply untrue.”
Poll monitors and election officials say they are prepared to handle anything that comes up.
Scott McDonell, Dane County clerk, recently reminded law enforcement about the rules for election observers, warning of increased emotions for this election.
“We’re worried about folks who are a little bit more emotional and may not know the rules,” says McDonell. “There are strict rules about observers not disturbing the polling place, not talking to voters, not electioneering and clearly identifying themselves. Law enforcement in this community is really good, and they know the rules; I’m not expecting anything to happen, but if it does, we can handle it.”
To ensure the election runs smoothly statewide, the elections commission has partnered with federal and state agencies to address election security, and met with both the Republican and Democratic parties to discuss issues that may arise.
“The election is now in the hands of the voters,” Haas says. “We expect the polls to be busy and for Wisconsin to again have one of the highest voter turnout rates in the nation. While the long campaign season has emphasized partisan disagreements, we expect all Wisconsinites to observe and promote civility at the polls.”
