PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — In addition to the high-profile state superintendent and state Supreme Court races on the April 1 spring ballot, Wisconsinites will also be asked if they want to change the state’s constitution.
Voters will see a state referendum that deals with voter ID on the ballot.
Signed into law in 2011, Wisconsin’s voter ID law didn’t go into effect until 2016 — following lengthy legal challenges. Since then, voters have had to show a valid ID when they go to the polls.
Valid IDs include things like a Wisconsin driver’s license, a Wisconsin DOT-issued identification card, a military ID card issued by the U.S. Uniformed Services, a U.S. passport or an ID card issued by a federally recognized Indian tribe in Wisconsin, among others.
A proposal is on the April 1 ballot to turn that law into a constitutional amendment. The ballot question, which requires a yes or no answer, reads:
Photographic identification for voting. Shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?
“The referendums are always written and worded in a confusing way. I’m a poll worker. Everyone at my polling place is really nice to me. If I’m gonna get yelled at, it’s because people don’t know what they’re voting for when they’re voting for referendums because they’re written in ways that people don’t understand what they’re actually voting for,” said Dawn Smith, president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Green Bay.
The referendum isn’t asking whether to get rid of or keep that law. It will remain in place no matter the April 1 outcome, and voters will still have to show an ID at the polls moving forward.
Democrats, however, are accusing Republicans — who currently hold the majority — of trying to use the constitutional amendment to legislate.
“I think it’s something that we have proven. It’s already state law and my position is that we are essentially wasting everybody’s time by adding this to the ballot. I think we’ve had five of these already, so it’s a pattern and it’s a politically motivated pattern,” said State Rep. Lee Snodgrass, D-Appleton.
Republicans say it has nothing to do with fear of what could happen if they lose the majority. Instead, it opens up further discussion on setting a photo ID standard.
“Let the legislators argue about the different details of it throughout the next few years or decades to figure out what the exceptions should be, what IDs we want to use. And that opens conversation for us to figure out exactly what the future of photo ID can be — whether it’s digital, whether we have different implementation of different IDs. That leaves it open for us to have that discussion,” said State Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome.
36 states have a voter ID law in place. In only a few is it a constitutional amendment.
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