On Monday, a Dane County judge ruled Wisconsin’s voter ID law unconstitutional. The Badger Herald reported that, as one would expect, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign spokesperson Mike McCabe praised the ruling, while the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s spokesperson, Ben Sparks, said Republicans are planning to appeal.
Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Gov. Scott Walker, said, “It’s a shame activist Dane County judges continue to stand in the way of common sense,” according to the Huffington Post. The whole activist court argument has always seemed pretty myopic to me. If you feel an activist court ruling is “shameful,” then you must also think it’s a shame we have desegregated schools, because Brown v. Board of Education was an “activist” court decision at the time.
What the voter ID law comes down to is Wisconsin’s constitution. Is it constitutional or not? There are five kinds of laws that can be passed regarding voting. First, a law can be passed defining residency. Presenting an ID to prevent voting fraud does not seem to be relevant to who qualifies as a resident. Yes, you must be a resident to vote, but that’s dealt with in the registration phase, not the actual voting. Thus, the voter ID law doesn’t fall under the first category.
Second, a law can be passed “providing for the registration of voters.” Since registering to be able to vote is different from ensuring you are who you are, the voter ID law doesn’t qualify here.
Third, a voting law may be passed if it relates to absentee voting. Again, the voter ID law doesn’t satisfy this requirement, since voting verification at the polls has naught to do with absentee voting.
Fourth, a law can be enacted if it regards the exclusion of felons or incompetent people. While some may argue that only “incompetent” people won’t have a valid voter ID, Wisconsin’s constitution refers to a different sort of incompetence, and the voter ID law fails to fit this category.
Finally, a law can be passed if it regards extending voting rights to groups, subject to ratification by the people. Again, requiring a voter ID doesn’t fall under this category.
Under the five criteria for what is a constitutional voting law, there isn’t much supporting the voter ID legislation. There’s nothing in our state constitution allowing government to regulate who can vote at the polls.
Most citizens, unfortunately, don’t hear the reasoning behind a court decision. They simply hear “the court ruled such-and-such law is or isn’t OK.” There will likely be backlash from Republicans, calling this a liberal, activist ruling, just as Democrats will probably argue it’s the “right” decision. The ruling, however, is a great example of how courts are often perceived as making some sort of moral decision when ruling on the constitutionality of laws. Yes, there are some ideological decisions, but in this instance, based on the five criteria for voting legislation, the ID law is pretty obviously unconstitutional.
You might disagree, then, with the state constitution, and believe it should allow citizens to be required to present a voter ID. Unfortunately, the reality is no constitution is perfect. There will always be some who disagree with some clause or section, since, after all, we live in an imperfect world.
Americans seem to feel they have some sort of entitlement to always being right. We grow up with notions like free speech and privacy and feel entitled that what we believe is always right and should be imposed on others. So if there’s a ruling or law we disagree with, we get viscerally outraged, instead of accepting that we can’t always get our way.
Law is law. While some legislation may benefit the ethics of some legislators and citizens, constitutions don’t possess morality. They simply establish a framework for creating a long-lasting, operational governance system. The recent voter ID law ruling will likely be both praised and denounced for being “right” or “wrong.” But its status wasn’t a question of ethics; it was a question of constitutionality. This attribution of a sense of fairness in this instance reveals the “I want it my way, and only my way” mindset that has pervaded politics and continues to pull our state and country asunder.
Reginald Young ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in legal studies and Scandinavian studies.
