A Wisconsin civil liberties activist group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker alleging the new voter ID law unconstitutional.

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the voter ID law, which goes into effect in February. They argue that besides being unconstitutional, the voter ID law disenfranchises voters. 

“The photo ID law imposes a severe and undue burden on the fundamental right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the complaint says.

According to the complaint, the law is also in violation of the 24th amendment, which bans poll taxes.

However, Republicans have argued the new law will preserve the value of elections.

The practice of requiring photo identification will prevent fraudulent attempts to vote, Walker spokesperson Cullen Werwie said in an email to The Badger Herald. 

“Requiring photo identification to vote helps to ensure the integrity of our elections,” he said. “We already require it to get a library card, cold medicine and public assistance.”

Along with the governor, members of the Government Accountability Board were also listed as defendants in the complaint.

Reid Magney, spokesperson for the GAB, said the board is in charge of implementing the voter ID law.

Individual members, he said, are responsible for a number of tasks, including educating the public about the new law, training election workers and making the necessary changes to the voter registration system.

However, an ACLU member said the new law jeopardizes the democratic process.

“The right to vote is part of the basis for our whole democracy,” Stacy Harbaugh, spokesperson for the ACLU of Wisconsin, said. “Real voters in Wisconsin will be affected by this law.”

Harbaugh said ACLU is representing groups of people who are less likely to have government-issued IDs, such as students, veterans, people with disabilities, people from low-income households and people of color from the Milwaukee area. The plaintiffs of the ACLU lawsuit are all residents of Wisconsin and represent many of the groups ACLU said will be affected by voter ID the most.

According to Harbaugh, ACLU is not the only opponent of the voter ID law. She said it has also been challenged in Wisconsin state court based on the state constitution.

Wisconsin is not the first state to issue voter ID, Werwie said, and in prior court cases, it has been successfully defended.

“At least 15 other states have enacted photo ID requirement to vote,” Werwie said. “Photo ID requirement[s] have been passed around the country and upheld by federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.”

This was true of the voter ID law in Indiana, Harbaugh said, which ACLU filed a complaint against. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge, declaring that because any resident can get a free ID, the law is not in violation of the 24th amendment.

The national ACLU, ACLU of Wisconsin and the Center on Homelessness and Poverty still believe it is necessary to scrutinize any law that restricts people’s right to vote and discriminates against certain groups of people, Harbaugh said. When people need to overcome obstacles in order to practice their constitutional rights, she said, it needs to be brought to the attention of the federal court.