Voter Disenfranchisement Bill passes 59-36

This awesome summary of the Voter Disenfranchisement Bill was compiled by Shanon Molina on Facebook. My own notes below are in italics. Especially egregious failures are noted in bold.

Shanon Molina

In the May 11th, 2011 debate/vote on the GOP backed Voter ID Bill the Dems really took it to them. They came in with guns ablazin’ in an attempt to keep this Bill from disenfranchising the people of this great state. Below is a play by play from Racine Assembleyman Cory Mason’s facebook as he kept us updated on the amendments proposed by the Democrats…

1. Dem amendment to require administration to find a way to pay for voter ID bill without raiding transportation fund; amendment fails.
2. Dems offer amendment to require DMV's to have evening and Saturdays in every county. Now that we are requiring people to have a DMV issued ID to vote, we should make sure people have access to DMV offices. Many counties have no DMV office or are only open once a month; amendment fails. This runs quite counter to a post I did on how progressives might support this bill.
3. Dems offer amendment to allow voters to vote without photo ID if they object to photos of themselves being taken for religious reasons; amendment fails. Will this pass muster on 1st amendment grounds?
4. Dems offer amendment to require mobile DMV stations on college campuses if we aren't going to have offices in every county open at night or on weekends; amendment fails
5. Dems offer amendment to have mobile DMV stations in high poverty areas; amendment fails. Again, my post.
6. Dems offer amendment to clarify what it means to have the name on your ID "conform" to the name on the voter rolls; i.e. John F Smith in the ID versus John Smith on the voter rolls; amendment fails
7. Dems offer an amendment to make it clear on the DMV form that they can get the ID free of charge; amendment fails. Don't tell people it's free, make them think it costs money.
8. Dems offer and amendment that moves the deadline to clarify the provisional ballot to 10 days after the election; amendment fails.
9. Dems offer amendment to address absurdity in the law: you need photo ID to get a birth certificate AND you need a birth certificate to get a photo ID; amendment fails
10. Dems offer amendment to ensure that the homeless and those in transient housing can still vote without proof of residency; amendment fails. Stone, author of the bill says homeless people will now have 'responsibilities' to exercise their right to vote. He also concedes he doesn't know if DOT will give an ID with the address of a public library, as the homeless currently do. Wow.  This one is simply amazing and should be challenged in court.  There is at least one open case in Ohio challenging that state's Voter ID law on constitutional grounds.  The law, passed in 2006, is just now (5 years later) coming to court.  The League of Women Voters has weighed in against Minnesota's Voter ID law claiming it disenfranchises homeless veterans.  A paper in the Valpariso Law Review entitled "Disenfranchise This: State Voter ID Laws and Their Discontents, a Blueprint for Bringing Successful Equal Protection and Poll Tax Claims" (alternate location) details ways in which advocacy groups have brought suit against state governments for various claims against these laws and the successes and failures of such attempts.  I strongly recommend anyone interested in this issue to read this article. 
11. Dems offer an amendment to inform the voter if their vote has been deemed provisional. How else are voters to know if they have to correct their ballot; amendment fails. By all means, don't tell the voter if his vote counts or not.
12. Vruwink offers amendment to exempt towns from this bill; amendment fails. So much for local control.
13. Dems offer amendment to remove requirement that voters mail in a copy of their photo ID when they vote by mail;amendment fails.
14. Dems offer amendment to waive fees for secondary ID's to get DMV voter card to avoid poll tax; amendment fails. Poll tax suit possibility.
15. Dems offer amendment that out of state license is acceptable form of ID if corroborating ID of current WI address; amendment fails.
16. Dems offer amendment to clarify that if license is suspended revoked it is still valid for the purposes of voting; amendment fails.
17. Dems offer amendment that says employers have to give 3 hours off of work to get to one of these rarely open DMV centers; amendment fails. So voters who can't get to DMV can't vote.
18. Dems offer amendment to require clerks to keep voter lists up to date so that you right to vote is based on you proving your qualification as a voter NOT on the potential mistakes in a voter list; amendment fails.
19. Dems offer amendment to keep expired ID's valid back to the last NOVEMBER general election; amendment fails. So if your ID has expired and you don't realize until election day, fuck you, no vote for you.
20. Dems offer an amendment to allow for Student ID's to be valid ID's for the purposes of voting; amendment fails. This was specifically rejected to dilute Dane County.
21. Dems offer amendment to restore straight ticket voting; amendment fails.
22. Dems offer amendment to all people with disabilities to be required from having to sign the voter roll if a disability prevents them from doing so; amendment fails. Undue burdon lawsuit.
23. Dems offer amendment to give people with disabilities the opportunity to vote with other forms of government issued ID's; amendment fails. Undue burdon lawsuit.
24. Dems offer amendment to make it illegal to bribe someone with anything of value in exchange for signing a recall petition. Kensoha bartender was caught on tape trading shots for signatures. Amendment fails. This one got a lot of laughs.
25. Dems offer amendment to allow voters to stay on absentee list if they miss one election; amendment fails.
26. Dems offer amendment to require county clerks to post results online community by community and ward by ward on election day. This would avoid clerks magically finding more than 14,000 votes two days after the election in a way that changes the outcome of a statewide election. Amendment fails. This one was intended to fix Waukesha County specifically.
27. Dems offer amendment to allow any ID issued by any level of government to be valid for the purposes of voting. It will save the state at least $7 million on the cost of the bill; amendment fails.
28. Dems offer amendments to allow affidavit to be signed verifying someone's identity if they don't have proper documentation on Election Day; they all fail. Undue burdon.

Voter suppression bill passes 60-35.

There is NO mistaking the motivation behind this Bill, the GOP is not interested in preserving our electorial process they are BLATANTLY trying to PREVENT us from our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO VOTE!!!