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Monday, August 04, 2014

http://wuwm.com/post/court-ruling-leaves-voter-id-procedure-hands-wisconsin-dmv

Last week's WI Supreme Court voter ID ruling was a victory for both sides.
For supporters, the court reversed the lower court and upheld the statute. (Statute not law; it's still considered unconstitutional and therefor void in a federal decision still under appeal.)
What's more, they did so under a standard so permissive the legislature now knows it can get away with just about anything with no barriers under the state constitution, although these cases depend highly on the whims of the court, and could go another way in another case.

For opponents, however, the court found that having to buy documents would constitute a poll tax and thus be unconstitutional, so they found that fees could not be required. This is easy administratively for those from wisconsin, who can be given a birth cert at no charge, but how to deal with those who (claim to be) born in other states? the above article discusses this issue, while pointing out that it is all theory as long as the statute remains on hold in federal court.

I have not followed he progress of the federal case. Has a panel been assigned at the 7th circuit,and does it include Posner? He has famously/infamously had mixed feelings about his decision in Crawford v Marion County Board of Elections. His result but not his methodology was upheld by the USSCt.  

Posner, and the district judge had applied permissive review under Burdick v Takushi. 5 of the Supreme Court found that this was the wrong standard, although they did not join a single opinion.

While the Wisconsin Constitution in one sense means whatever the WISCt says it does, I disagree with the approach they took. I am likely to write something longer about this at some point.

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