News & Commentary

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.

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.

A long and bitter Wisconsin trial ended Tuesday afternoon with a sweeping defeat for supporters of a voter-ID law designed to make it more difficult for citizens to cast ballots. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman declared in a 90-page order that the state's new voting restrictions violate both the equal-protection clause of the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The law unduly burdens minority voters, he ruled, without sufficient justification for doing so.

Wisconsin became the latest state to have its voter identification law struck down by the courts, with a federal judge in Milwaukee on Tuesday concluding that opponents of the requirement have shown it has a "disproportionate impact" on many voters. Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee ruled the requirement that voters present one of nine forms of government-approved photo ID was in violation of the landmark Voting Rights Act. He issued an injunction blocking enforcement of the law. A state judge had earlier tossed out the law on similar legal grounds.

A federal judge struck down Wisconsin's voter ID law Tuesday, less than a week after a Circuit Court judge found Arkansas' voter ID law unconstitutional. At least one more court decision should come down before November, but voting rights cases and legislation are brewing in plenty of other places worth keeping an eye on this year.

MILWAUKEE — A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter identification law Tuesday, declaring that a requirement that voters show a state-issued photo ID at the polls imposes an unfair burden on poor and minority voters.

In a major victory for voting rights, Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been struck down by a federal court, which found that it illegally discriminates against racial minorities.

At 2:17 pm EST today, ESPN announced that LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling had been banned from the NBAfor life for his racist remarks.