Just Vote, OK?

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

10 October 14

t this point, voters in Wisconsin might as well just drop a name into a hat on the bar at Saz's in Milwaukee and hope for the best. The insistence of Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, and of his pet legislature, and of his campaign, and of pretty much the entire Republican party of the state, to play cheap mumbledy-peg with the franchise has left things in such a clusterfk that the federal courts are starting to cramp up pretty badly in their attempts to uncluster all the fk. Last night, the Nine Wise Souls got into the act.

The Wisconsin requirement, one of the strictest in the nation, is part of a state law enacted in 2011 but mostly blocked by various courts in the interim. A federal trial judge had blocked it, saying it would "deter or prevent a substantial number of the 300,000-plus registered voters who lack ID from voting" and would disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters. The law was provisionally reinstated last month by a unanimous three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Chicago hours after it heard arguments. The full court was deadlocked, five to five, on a request for a new hearing. "It is simply impossible, as a matter of common sense and of logistics, that hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters will both learn about the need for photo identification and obtain the requisite identification in the next 36 days," the appeals court judges opposed to the requirement wrote.

(Meanwhile, down in Texas, a federal court threw out that state's voter-ID law. The state says it will appeal in order to "avoid confusion" on election day. My head is beginning to hurt.)

Wait, you say, didn't the NWS step in on the other side just the other day as regards the voter-suppression law in North Carolina? Well, not quite, I guess.

Recent Supreme Court orders have restored voting restrictions in Ohio and North Carolina that appeals courts had blocked. The Ohio case concerned early voting, and the North Carolina case involved same-day registration and votes cast in error at the wrong precinct.

Oh. Not all voter suppression is the same.

I suspect this is what happens when you tear up the electoral system in an attempt to correct a non-existent problem because there are lots of people who aren't buying what you're selling, but that's just me.

"That is great news, wonderful news," Milwaukee NAACP chapter President James Hall said. "I think it's gratifying that the court has seen fit to block the implementation of this law that would most certainly create chaos and confusion in this election." Critics of the new law complained that the state would not be able to train poll workers, inform voters and distribute IDs to those who would need them to vote. But Van Hollen said his office "will be exploring alternatives to address the court's concern and have voter ID on election day...I believe the voter ID law is constitutional, and nothing in the court's order suggests otherwise," the second-term Republican said in his statement. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said he was surprised by the high court's action. "It's disappointing," Vos said. "It's broadly supported by the public. We showed in every way possible we could handle it. It's a common sense idea that should go forward."

Were I a cynical soul, I might argue that, for the people behind this law, creating chaos and confusion in the system, especially among the people unlikely to vote their way, is simply Plan B.