Wisconsin election officials to consider purged voter options
Wisconsin election officials are scheduled to meet Monday to consider what to do about more than 200,000 voters that a judge has ruled should be purged from voter rolls in the key swing state.
The judge’s ruling this month in favor of a conservative law firm said the Wisconsin Elections Commission must immediately deactivate the voter registrations of people who were sent a 2019 movers mailing and either did not respond or whose letter was returned as undeliverable. The affected voters are registered in heavily Democratic areas of Wisconsin, a battleground state in the 2020 election that President Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016.
The commission could follow that ruling to the letter and immediately deactivate those voters. Or it could deactivate the voters but send them a mailing alerting them that their registration status has changed and telling them how to register at their current address. The commission could also decide to mail the 209,000 voters who have not requested continuation or re-registered, telling them their registration will be deactivated if they don’t request continuation within a set time.
In addition, the commission could decide only to act for voters in the 7th Congressional District, rather than for voters statewide. Voters in the sprawling northwestern district must be sent absentee ballots for the Feb. 18 Republican primary to replace former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy by a Jan. 2 deadline.
Thanks for visiting our newly updated site!
Enjoy unlimited articles FREE for a limited time by signing up or logging in. No credit card required.
It could choose to review the timeline, costs and format of mailing voters. And it could choose not to do anything at all, and just await direction from the courts. If a state appeals court puts the judge’s order on hold, as the Wisconsin Department of Justice has asked, no commission action would be required.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the group that brought the lawsuit, is trying to bypass the appeals court and have the state Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, immediately take the case.
Democrats fear forcing voters whose registration was nullified to re-register creates a burden and could hurt turnout in the 2020 presidential election. Republicans argue that removing the voters ensures the rolls are not full of people who shouldn’t be voting.
Wisconsin allows voters to register on election day, so the decision to purge the voter rolls will not block anyone from voting. But someone unaware of the change who has to re-register on election day would have to bring proof of residency to the polling place, adding a complication to the voting process.
The League of Women Voters of Woman also has filed a federal lawsuit to stop the purge. That lawsuit argues that it would be a violation of constitutional due process rights to deactivate the registrations of the voters without proper notice.
More than 18,000 Madison voters could be affected by voter purge
About 10% of Madison’s registered voters are affected.
Conservative legal group asks Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up voter purge case
The group argued the Supreme Court should accelerate the case to prevent the state’s Elections Commission from continuing its delay of the voter purge.
Legislature seeks to intervene in federal voter purge case
The possible intervention is the latest legal maneuver in one of two major legal challenges to the how the state Elections Commission cleans up the state’s voter rolls.
State appeals court keeps in place voter purge ruling for now
The court could still put the ruling on hold on or after Monday.
Wisconsin Elections commission declines voter purge for now
Commissioners failed to approve a motion that would have instructed the commission to remove voters within 7 business days.
