Right now, the Wisconsin Senate and the Assembly are rushing a raft of anti-voter bills through the Legislature.
Yesterday, the Senate voted to pass three proposals (Senate Bills 207, 210 and 213) that were passed out of committee just the day before.
Today, both Senate and Assembly committees take up more anti-voter bills in public hearings: AB194 companion to SB213 and SB204, 205, 211.
We need you to contact your legislators – today or by the end of the week! – to voice your strong opposition and protect the freedom to vote.
To contact your legislators, call the toll-free legislative hotline at 1-800-362-9472 during normal business hours. Or send them an email:
E-mail directory for Senators, click here.
E-mail directory for Assembly members, click here.
Here are two main messages:
1. The freedom to vote is basic to our democracy, and throughout our history, we’ve made great strides in making voting more accessible, no matter the race, sex, background or zip code of the voter. Every eligible American should have access to the ballot, and our democracy works best when our citizens vote in high numbers, as they did in the last election. But these bills will take us backwards, creating steep barriers to voting.
2. This effort reinforces a pernicious lie and feeds a dangerous mass delusion about the legitimacy of the Biden presidency, and it corrodes the cornerstone of our democracy, which is respect for our electoral process. Stop playing with fire!
And here is a brief description of what’s wrong with the following bills:
SB203/AB192: Would make it harder for persons with disabilities or in a nursing home or residential care facility to access assistance in delivering their absentee ballot.
SB204/AB201: Would make it much harder to vote by absentee ballot, especially for persons with disabilities or those who are in nursing homes or residential care facilities. They would have to show a Voter ID card, and everyone would have to request an absentee ballot for every election instead of getting their absentee ballots mailed to them.
SB205/AB179: Would require nursing homes and residential care facilities to paternalistically contact relatives of residents when voting is going to occur at the facility. Would also make it a felony for employees of such facilities to even encourage residents to vote!
SB206/AB180: Would require persons who are indefinitely confined to sign an oath, and any such person who is under 65 would need to get the oath also signed by their doctor or nurse, which is age discrimination!
SB207/AB173: Would prohibit employees of “issue advocacy” groups from being poll workers. Does this mean you? It would limit the number of available poll workers, who are already hard to find.
SB209/AB177: Would require that municipalities have only one dropbox, which would have to be attached to the building where the clerk’s office is. This would cause huge lines in urban areas.
SB210/AB170: Would require clerks to allow observers to be no more than three feet away from voters, which would violate voters’ right to privacy and could intimidate voters and poll workers alike.
SB211/AB178: Would require the Elections Commission to create a very detailed absentee ballot application that is separate and distinct from the absentee ballot certificate envelope voters must already complete when they return their absentee ballots. This makes it more burdensome for voters to request an absentee ballot, and especially so for voters with disabilities.
SB212/AB198: Would prohibit a clerk from correcting a defect on a completed absentee ballot certificate envelope. Instead of directly contacting the voter for information, the clerk must use an arduous process of returning the ballot to the elector via the USPS and post a notification of the defect on the elector’s page on the MyVote website.
SB213/AB194: Would shift authority over elections from the Elections Commission by letting individuals sue election officials without first filing a complaint with the commission. Under current law, an alleged violation would have to be tried in the county where a defendant resides. This bill allows plaintiffs to “venue shop” for partisan judges. Further, it would allow district attorneys to investigate election law violations in counties contiguous to theirs, resulting in, for example, DAs in Republican strongholds to open investigations into alleged violations in counties that are Democratic strongholds.
Please use these specific bill numbers when contacting your legislators. Thanks for taking action.