The Government Accountability Board said Thursday it does not want to see the state Supreme Court rule on the voter ID bill before the Nov. 6 presidential election. Kevin Kennedy, director of the state GAB, said he doesn’t believe there is enough time to implement the law and told Attorney General J.B Van Hollen, “This is going to create problems.” The response from a spokeswoman for Van Hollen, Dana Brueck, boiled down to, “Voter ID is the law of the state of Wisconsin, and should be in place for the November election.”

Two Dane County judges have already blocked the law, citing a “substantial impairment of the right to vote,” a guaranteed right under the state constitution.

The issue at this point is really twofold, and whether or not the state should enact this law long-term really needs to take a backseat to the more immediate problem: Can the law be enacted right now?

According to a survey by the ACLU commissioned by the plaintiffs against the voter ID bill, in Milwaukee County alone, 9.5 percent of unregistered voters and 8.7 percent of registered voters do not have acceptable ID. The survey also shows the law would affect Latino and black voters to an even larger extent. 

Those numbers seem to fit with a national survey by the Black Youth Project, a non-partisan, not-for-profit whose own study “Indicate(s) that overall levels of turnout among young people of color are likely to be reduced by large numbers – between 538,000 and 696,000 in total – in the states that have passed these laws, perhaps falling below 2004 and 2008 levels.” 

With only eight weeks until the election and no verdict on the case imminent, the GAB’s desire to push the ruling beyond this election makes perfect sense.
What if, for instance, the ruling came at the beginning of October? That would leave a month for both sides of the voting equation to scramble to meet the requirements. On the voter side, it is clear there are a significant number of people without IDs, people who would have to then find time to get to the DMV and get acceptable identification. 

With all ID being mailed, many may not even receive their IDs on time.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation does make clear “A receipt including your photo will be provided to you. This receipt is acceptable photo identification for voting and serves as your ID until your card arrives in the mail.” But these complications for the voter are then multiplied, as the GAB has to scramble to implement the law and teach its poll workers what ID is acceptable, how to understand the receipts and how to deal with the legal citizens of this state who show up without ID.
The state Supreme Court should take up this case in the future. 

Wisconsin needs to have the attorney general prove to the court that voter fraud, which according to Kevin Kennedy in a Politifact story has never exceeded 20 instances in any statewide election since 2000, is a grievous concern. But with a close presidential election and a closing time frame for implementation, now is not the time to decide this issue.
The bottom line is there clearly is a sizable portion of our population that has the legal right to vote but doesn’t have any form of state identification. 

Eight weeks before a presidential election is therefore not the time to fairly decide on this bill, and that’s the point Van Hollen missed when he said, “I would think that the other side would be happy to have a decision sooner than later too and have this done, if they have confidence in their legal position, by all means let’s get this over with,” as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Both sides have confidence in their legal position; that’s how a case like this gets to the state Supreme Court. With time being such a factor in this scenario, the right decision is to allow this election to be conducted under existing law and save settling voter ID until after.

John Waters ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.