Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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DOT disservices students in attempt to make some cash

Here’s a weird little tidbit about me: I love voting.

Some people get a rush from roller coasters, others look forward to seeing live concerts and of course there’s always the sex, drugs and rock and roll crowd. Me? Sure, those things are great, but nothing can compare to seeing the machine snap up my ballot. Sometimes in my most glorious dreams I have moved to a state where you get to pull a lever.

Under Wisconsin’s new voter ID law, which goes into effect next year, exercising my passion for speaking up is going to get harder. So why, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, are you adding to the troubles citizens must go through to be eligible to vote?

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The voter ID law has been a controversial piece of legislation from the start, and for me, there has not been a more chilling miscarriage of justice in this state since I moved here in 1990. While on the surface asking for proof of identification to vote doesn’t seem awful, consider this, University of Wisconsin student: Do you have a photo ID with your current address on it? I’m willing to bet most of us wandering students who tend to move from place to place don’t head all the way to the suburbs every year to renew their license.

The thing about us students is that we also tend to be cash strapped. Wouldn’t it be great if the DOT offered us free IDs so we could perform our civic duty? Oh wait, they are? You likely wouldn’t know, because no one knew that until the Wisconsin State Journal obtained and released an internal memo instructing employees not to inform anyone of the free ID policy and only to give them to customers who come in knowing they are available.

To keep knowledge of this program at a minimum, the state government has even gone as far as to fire a low level employee for making his co-workers aware of the free ID policy according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article.

The State Journal article continued with interviews suggesting that DOT officials are more interested in collecting money from those who will pay than advertising the free option to those who can’t. While there have been no studies or polls on this, I am certain that more students would head to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a free ID than would trek over there to pay for one.

Our generation is consistently called out in the media by both pundits and politicians for being uninvolved, for not educating ourselves on nuanced issues, for having a low voting rate. With government agencies beginning to concern themselves more with making money than with giving all citizens access to polls, I don’t think this issue is going to change.

I, and many of the young adults I have met on the UW campus, understand that voting is a right and a privilege. We also understand that it is our duty to vote as citizens of the United States and the great state of Wisconsin. This week, the Wisconsin DOT has decided it would rather rake in a little extra cash than see us all get our necessary identification.

For shame, DOT. For shame.

Carolyn Briggs ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English.

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