More than 200,000 voters threatened with unlawful removal
MADISON – On Friday, November 22, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin asked an Ozaukee County judge to allow it to join an existing lawsuit as an intervening defendant to prevent thousands of voters from being unlawfully purged from the state voter rolls. Wisconsin state law requires voter purges to be based on “reliable information” that voters have moved. However, due to many factors with how the state gathers voter information, some voter roll maintenance is based on flawed, unreliable information, meaning many voters could find their registration revoked even if they have not moved outside their municipality.
“Maintaining accurate voter rolls is an important part of our elections, but it must be based on accurate information,” said Erin Grunze, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. “Current methods put thousands of legitimate voter registrations at risk, and a purge right now would amount to voter suppression.”
The first time Wisconsin used this flawed data to purge voter rolls was in the 2017-2018 election cycle. As a result, three cities, including Milwaukee, reversed the purge entirely because so many errors were present in the data. New letters were sent to 234,000 registered voters in October 2019, which accounts for 7% of Wisconsin’s 3.3 million registered voters. The League is represented by Jon Sherman and Cecilia Aguilera at Fair Elections Center and Doug Poland at Rathje Woodward LLC.
“Wisconsin law is clear; a registered voter can only be removed based on ‘reliable information’ of a residential address change,” said Jon Sherman, Senior Counsel at Fair Elections Center. “A 7% error rate would be ludicrous and unacceptable in a calculator or a smoke detector; it cannot possibly be considered reliable when it comes to the most fundamental right in a democracy.”
The three plaintiffs – voters from Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha Counties – have asked the Ozaukee County Circuit Court to enter a temporary injunction that would require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to deactivate the registrations of 234,000 voters from around Wisconsin if they do not respond within 30 days to notices sent by the Elections Commission in October confirming that they currently live at the address where they are registered to vote. The Elections Commission last spring determined that because inaccuracies in voter address information provided by the Wisconsin DMV caused voters to be left off the poll book, it would implement a 12-24 month-long process to confirm that those voters have not moved so their registrations are not mistakenly removed. The court has scheduled a hearing on the temporary injunction motion for December 5. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin has asked the court to order that it may join the case and participate in the December 5 hearing.
Key legal documents filed by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin can be found here.
Memberships
Greater Chippewa Valley League of Women Voters forum on Gerrymandering
This is the first forum sponsored by the recently-rebooted Chippewa Valley League of Women Voters chapter. This session is a presenation by Andrea Kaminski, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, and Jay Heck, Executive Director of Common Cause. The session was followed by a lively Q&A session. There were over 75 in attendance at the meeting, which is a great start for the local chapter. For more information on the LWV in Wisconsin, including information on how to join, see the link below. Since the chapter locally is new, it is an At-Large chapter, meaning you will have to join the state-wide organization, and wlll become a member of the local chapter that way.
The LWV will have an organizational meeting on July 13 in Menomonie.
GERRYMANDERING/REDISTRICTING MEETING - CHIPPEWA VALLEY LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTER
Democratic Party asks to Intervene in Voter Suppression Lawsuit
The Democratic Party of
Wisconsin today filed a motion in Dane
County Circuit Court to
intervene in Attorney General JB Van Hollen’s lawsuit against the
Government Accountability Board to ensure that the votes of every eligible
voter are counted this November.
Van Hollen's lawsuit, if successful, would likely cause confusion at the polls, as many (estimated at 20%) of the voters who were recently registered would have their registrations challenged at the polling place.
“If Van Hollen won’t
drop his baseless, hyper-partisan lawsuit, then the Democratic Party has no
choice but to intervene to make sure the up to one million eligible Wisconsin
voters his suit targets do not lose their right to vote,” said Joe
Wineke, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “By being a
party to the lawsuit, we will be able to protect the fundamental American right
of all eligible voters to have their votes counted.”“We know Republicans will be
out in full force this fall trying to prevent legitimate voters from exercising
their most basic American freedom – and Van Hollen’s lawsuit is
just the tip of the iceberg,” Wineke said. “The Democratic Party
of Wisconsin will not let this happen, and by being a party to this lawsuit, we
will ensure that every legitimate vote is counted on November 4.”
The court motion is attached.
Steve is a member of LION Publishers , the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce, the Online News Association, and the Local Media Consortium, and is active in Health Dunn Right.
He has been a computer guy most of his life but has published a political blog, a discussion website, and now Eye On Dunn County.
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