News & Commentary

Video: The ACLU lawyer discusses the group's victory in court this week over the voter ID law.

A federal judge struck down Wisconsin's new voter identification law last week, ruling that the law violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution as well as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from imposing a voting qualification that "results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." In his ruling, District Judge Lynn Adelman found that Wisconsin did not sufficiently prove that voter fraud exists. "The evidence at trial established that virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin," wrote Adelman. "The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past." The judge also found that the law unjustifiably targeted minority voters, who were less likely to have qualifying identification than whites, and would result in less opportunities for minorities to participate in the political process. This result would be particularly troublesome given Judge Adelman's finding that "the disproportionate impact of the photo ID requirement results from the interaction of the requirement with the effects of past or present discrimination." Commenting on the ruling, Dale Ho, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Voting Rights Project, said, "This is a warning to other states that are trying to make it harder for citizens to vote." He continued, "This decision put them on notice that they can't tamper with citizens' fundamental right to cast a ballot. The people, and our democracy, deserve and demand better." The ACLU, the ACLU of Wisconsin, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and Dechert LLP argued the Wisconsin case at trial.

This week's federal court decision to strike down Wisconsin's polling place Photo ID law has national significance and does not bode well for Republicans who have been attempting to advance such electoral schemes in recent years, as based on misleading "facts", wild claims and dishonest interpretations of case law and court precedent.

It’s an instructive accident that on the day Sterling was bounced, Judge Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court in Milwaukee delivered a careful, comprehensive 90-page ruling tossing out Wisconsin’s voter identification law. In language more reserved than I am about to use, Adelman’s painstaking analysis concluded that the actual fraud is the idea that voter impersonation at the polls is a problem. It’s not.

Wisconsin's attorney general says he'll fight a ruling by a federal judge striking down Wisconsin's voter identification law. The judge says it unfairly burdens poor and minority voters. His decision invalidates Wisconsin's law. It would have required voters to show a state-issued photo ID at the polls. Supporters said it would cut down on voter fraud. The law was only in effect for a 2012 primary, before a Dane County judge declared it unconstitutional. Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen says he'll fight the ruling. He released this statement saying, “I am disappointed with the order and continue to believe Wisconsin's law is constitutional. We will appeal.” This decision is a win for the Brokaw woman who sued the state over the controversial law. Ruthelle Frank says she's happy with the judge's decision. In 2011, Frank was told she could not vote because she didn't have a valid birth certificate. While Frank knows this isn't the end, she says it is a step in the right direction. Frank has lived in the same house for 85 years. Throughout the years she's never missed an election. But when Governor Scott Walker signed the law requiring everyone to show a valid birth certificate in order to vote, Frank's voting streak was in jeopardy. That's when Newsline 9 first introduced you to Frank. "What's a birth certificate going to prove? I'll never get one,” she said in December 2011. After that Frank's story went national. She and other people represented by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state to overturn the law. Now, a federal judge in Milwaukee has done just that. So Newsline 9 asked Frank how she felt now that a decision has been made. “There's gotta be something in this world that's free,” Frank said during a phone interview. “I'm just glad because I worked and thought about you know and all this while I've been thinking it's taken too long to settle it." Frank has voted in every election since 1948. She says she has no plans to stop, especially now.

Madison — A federal judge on Wednesday kept alive a challenge to the state's gay marriage ban, but dismissed two prosecutors and the state's top tax official from the case.

A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed three defendants from the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s Marriage Amendment, though the ACLU did not oppose dismissal of two of them.

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down Wisconsin’s law requiring voters to produce state-approved photo identification cards at polling places, advancing a new legal basis — the Voting Rights Act — for similar challenges playing out around the nation.

A Brokaw woman who sued the state over its controversial voter identification law has won in federal court, but the fight is not likely over.