In a contentious meeting, the senate passed legislation that would require voters to present photo identification at the polls on Thursday.
The Senate clerk called roll over continuing objections from Democrats and minutes later the Senate passed the Voter Identification bill with a vote of 19 to 5.
The president adjourned the Senate and the Republicans left the
chambers, accompanied by shouts of “shame” from members of the
public in attendance.
The bill is expected to cost
the state between $5 million and $7 million. It will require voters to
present photo ID at the polls on election days, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Gov. Scott Walker will sign the bill into law on Wednesday, said Cullen Werwie, spokesperson for the governor.
Four senate Democrats and the Wisconsin Service Employees International Union released statements condemning the bill for being “undemocratic” and disenfranchising vulnerable sectors of the population.
“It is a sad day in Wisconsin, democracy suffers another blow,” Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, said. “I try to be hopeful but [Republicans] disregarded the rules, and disregarded the constitution. There is a trend of not being honest with people, of overreaching, of changing the rules, then cheating.”
However, republican support said the provision will prevent illegal voting practices.
“Requiring photo identification to vote will go a long way to eliminate the threat of voter fraud,” Walker said in a statement.
The legislation will deter voters from impersonating others, a problem which is currently undetectable, said Steve Means, executive assistant to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.
“This type of fraud hasn’t been prosecuted because there isn’t a means to detect it,” Means said. “This photo ID legislation is designed to allow poll workers to detect voters who are not the true elector.”
Wisconsin’s recently approved voter ID legislation is one of the country’s most restrictive, said Keesha Gaskins, senior council for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan public policy and law institute.
“The real core of photo ID laws is they make it more difficult to vote,” said Gaskins.
According to Jennie Bowser at the National Conference of State Legislatures, only Indiana, Georgia and most recently Kansas and South Carolina have similarly restrictive legislation.
Opponents have levied a couple lawsuits against photo ID laws but so far they have held up to the constitution, Bowser said.
“Just because precedent was set in Georgia and Indiana doesn’t mean all voter ID laws will survive constitutional muster,” Gaskins said. “Unlike many other things we use a photo ID for that are privileges, voting is a right, and people who deal with IDs all the time take that for granted.”
