As Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes tonight, Schimel's Wisconsin Department of "Justice" is preventing members of the State's Elections Commission from telling the truth to a federal judge.
In recent weeks, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and others have reported on Division of Motor Vehicles workers giving people inaccurate and incomplete information about their ability to get voting credentials.In addition, Ari Berman of The Nation has filed several recent reports on the Walker Administration's efforts to slow-walk efforts to make it easier for Wisconsin residents to vote, and here's Berman's latest revelation from today.
That prompted those suing the state to make a renewed push to overturn the voter ID law. Peterson has ordered a hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Now, two of the Democratic members of the Elections Commission are seeking a new lawyer to represent them because they say GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office would not file a report with the court on their behalf.
“Given the DOJ’s refusal to even honor a simple request from these named defendants to timely provide their report to this court, and in light of the DOJ’s attempt in its October 7, 2016 report to spin and even usurp the activities of the (commission) in furtherance of its litigation strategy, and because the (commission) was expressly created by the state to be an agency governed equally by the Republican and Democratic parties, we respectfully ask the court to order the DOJ to immediately assign these named defendants an attorney from the DOJ to appear on their behalf in this litigation...to represent their views,” commissioners Mark Thomsen and Ann Jacobs wrote in a letter that was unsealed late Tuesday.
The two wanted a report they wrote to be filed with the court because they do not believe the state has been clear about the shortcomings of the its efforts to alert the public about how people can get an ID if they don’t have birth certificates or other key documents.
Indian-American woman, a US citizen since 8, told she must spend $345 for naturalization papers to vote in Wisconsin https://t.co/FSfXi2fMHp pic.twitter.com/rOGyjaN2aq
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) October 11, 2016
Meanwhile, Walker is pulling the "say one thing to the public and (not do) another thing in reality" game.
From @AriBerman story incredibly important passage about contradiction b/w @GovWalker & @BradSchimel claims in #wivotesuit. pic.twitter.com/qGJZACznZu
— One Wisconsin Now (@onewisconsinnow) October 11, 2016
This flagrant flouting of the law requires two remedies.
1. Federal Judge James Peterson must strike down Wisconsin's voter ID law in this hearing tomorrow. The state is clearly not carrying out the law properly, and voting rights will be suppressed if the law is allowed to stay on the books for Election Day. And worse, they are hiding evidence of wrongdoing to the judge, and keeping the facts of the case from being known. That cannot be allowed to stand.
2. President Obama must have the Feds oversee the elections here in Wisconsin (as well as many other of these rogue ALEC states). The Walker Administration and Brad Schimel's partisan Department of "Justice" cannot be trusted to play it fair. Voting is the most important of all of our rights, if we are not allowed to choose who represents us, all other rights are endangered and can be taken away a whole lot easier. Allowing states to keep people from exercises that most vital right, especially when the restrictions are geared towards "those people" (as they are in Wisconsin), and creating a separate-but-equal society as a result, is something that violates the Oath of Office. And it requires Federal intervention.
Let the racist white righties and the AM radio hosts squawk, I dare them to try to defend in public what is clearly voter suppression, and an obvious attempt to rig our elections. The people are with you, Mr. President. So step up.
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