Today, the state of Wisconsin courtesy of state Attorney General JB Van Hollen had filed court papers to delay the implementation of his April ruling, which blocked the law that requires voters to carry government-issued identification at polls in order to cast a ballot. Hollen is asking US District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee to delay the enforcement of the the latter's decision to block the enforcement of the 2011 measure signed by Republican Governor Scott Walker. Bloomberg said Adelman had blocked the measure on the basis that it burdens the right to vote in minorities.
According to Van Hollen's filing, it read, "By entering such an excessively broad injunction, the court aims to give itself the power of a second Wisconsin governor, equipped with the authority to judicially ‘veto' future voter-ID laws that the Wisconsin legislature might enact."
It remains to be seen whether the state of Wisconsin would be successful with the lifting of the block of the voter ID law in the state, although Bloomberg noted that similar challenges to voter ID laws in other US states had succeeded. Little Rock, Arkansas, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania judges reportedly blocked the enforcement of state voter ID laws on similar bases, while a Texas case is currently pending.
Adelman, who presided the two-week trial about the voter ID requirement in polls last year, had found that the measure had the greatest impact on voters in the minority demographic, as majority of them live in poverty and would not have the financial means to afford the documents required to cast their votes.
"(I am barring the state) from conditioning a person's access to a ballot, either in person or absentee, on that person's presenting a form of photo identification," Adelman said then.
Lawyer John Ulin, who had sued on behalf of the affected minority voters, reportedly likened the law as a legal means to suppress the blacks' right to vote, which is similar to the situation 50 years ago. Assistant Attorney General Clayton Kawski had then argued that the law was meant to curb voter-impersonation fraud.
