Senate lawmakers debated the voter ID constitutional amendment on the floor Wednesday. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Republican lawmakers continued their swift work Wednesday to enshrine voter photo identification laws in the Wisconsin Constitution with the Senate passing the proposal on the floor and the Assembly holding a public hearing on it.
Wisconsin is one of nine states in the country with a strict photo ID requirement for voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Republican lawmakers cited worries that future legal challenges could weaken the law as they sought to enshrine it in the state constitution.
The measure, if it passes the Assembly, will go before voters in April on the same ballot as a high-profile state Supreme Court race that will determine whether liberals maintain a majority on the court. The amendment would need a simple majority of voters to pass.
Senate passes proposal
The Senate passed the measure 17 to 15 with Republicans voting for it and Democrats against. Sen. Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) was absent and didn’t cast a vote.
Democrats criticized the timing of the legislation during the floor debate, saying there are more urgent issues that lawmakers could be addressing, it is redundant given current state law and that voter ID laws create unnecessary obstacles for voters. Republicans defended the proposal as needed to ensure that the law isn’t changed anytime soon and argued that voter ID is needed to keep elections secure.
“There’s no emergency. [The requirements are] already in the law,” Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said. She argued that lawmakers could have decided to address any other number of issues, including gun violence after a recent school shooting in her district, state funding for public schools and local services and health care costs.
“The reason that we are rushing is because there is another important election and the right-wing candidate wants to make sure that this proposal is on the ballot,” Roys said. She suggested that Republicans favor voter ID to suppress the vote and “make it more likely for conservatives to win.” Brad Schimel, the former Wisconsin attorney general who is running for a seat on the state’s highest Court, previously suggested that the state’s voter ID requirement may have helped President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson win Wisconsin in 2016, Roys noted.
Republicans have moved quickly on the proposal. A public hearing, noticed on Monday evening following lawmakers’ inauguration, was held on Tuesday morning.
Lawmakers are working to pass the measure so it can appear on the April ballot. There aren’t any statewide elections in the fall, so the next chance for it to come up would be in the spring of 2026.
Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), who coauthored the proposal, said the measure was coming forward first because it was the only one that had been introduced and was ready for action.
“We can do more than one piece of legislation at a time,” Wanggaard said.
In explaining the measure, Wanggaard said he is “unwilling” to allow the Wisconsin Supreme Court to potentially overturn voter ID requirements. During the hearing Tuesday, he pointed out that since the state Supreme Court shifted from a conservative to a liberal majority in 2023, there have been challenges to the state’s 1849 law that banned abortion for a time following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and to Act 10.
Wanggaard also rejected claims that voter ID stops people from voting.
“This doesn’t deter people from voting,” Wanggaard said. “This actually helps to continue to support the importance of your votes.”
Republican lawmakers also argued that identification is needed to access many things in society including checking out library books and getting on an airplane.
Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) questioned why of all the election-related proposals, this was the first one that they were discussing.
“If you want to lead off on elections, which, frankly, I’m surprised you’re doing because there’s no Senate Elections Committee this session, but if you want to lead off on elections, how about Monday processing?” Spreitzer asked. A bill failed last session that sought to allow election clerks to begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before Election Day as a way of speeding up the process.
The proposal now needs to pass the Assembly, which held a press conference and public hearing on the issue ahead of the Senate floor session.
Assembly begins consideration
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said during a press conference that the Assembly intends to vote on the measure next week on Tuesday. He said the proposal is a way to allow voters to have the final say on voter ID requirements.
“It’s become an accepted practice as something that prevents fraud and it certainly should never be overturned by anyone but the will of the people,” Vos said. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has found that voter fraud is a rare crime and most recently reported 30 instances of fraud in 2023-24 elections out of more than 4 million votes cast.
Republican lawmakers have been using constitutional amendments in recent years to circumvent Gov. Tony Evers while addressing their legislative priorities. In 2024, Wisconsin voters saw five constitutional amendment questions on their ballots. Three passed and two were rejected.
In reaction to the trend, Evers announced earlier this week that in his budget proposal he will include a requirement for the Legislature to allow Wisconsin voters to bring forth constitutional amendment proposals without the input of lawmakers. Vos rejected Evers’ proposal Wednesday, saying he doesn’t believe in that process. He said the current process is more rigorous, open and transparent since it requires committee hearings and the involvement of legislators.
“D-O-A. Dead on arrival. It’s never going to happen,” Vos said.
Evers criticized Vos’ comments, insisting that Wisconsinites should have the ability to lead ballot initiatives.
“Republican lawmakers in the next week are set to add yet another constitutional amendment to the ballot while telling Wisconsinites they can’t have that same power,” Evers said in a statement. “If Republicans are going to continue to legislate by constitutional amendment, then they should be willing to give Wisconsinites that same opportunity. Pretty simple stuff.”
The latest constitutional amendment proposal would add language in the state constitution requiring that qualified electors present a photo ID issued by the state, by the federal government, by a federally recognized American Indian tribe or band, or by a college or university in Wisconsin when voting.
The amendment would require acceptable forms of ID to be specified in law, authorize lawmakers to pass laws establishing exceptions to the photo ID requirement and require that a person unable to present valid ID before voting on Election Day must be given the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot and present a valid photo ID at a later time and place.
During the public hearing in the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee, Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said he coauthored the amendment to “ensure that the people of Wisconsin have full confidence in the security and integrity of Wisconsin’s elections.”
Snyder said the upcoming Supreme Court election is not the main reason he and his colleagues proposed the measure, noting it passed the Legislature the first time in November 2023 and was introduced even earlier.
However, control of the Court as a whole and recent challenges to Wisconsin laws — including to abortion laws and Act 10 — influenced the decision to move the measure forward.
“When we have another Legislature making laws,” Snyder said, referring to the state Supreme Court, “We need to put this into our Constitution to secure it.”
Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) said it was “offensive” to her that the proposal is one of the first to be considered.
“I knocked a bunch of doors this summer… Not one person said to me, ‘I really want to make sure that we enshrine voter ID into the constitution,’” Snodgrass said.
The barriers that people could face in obtaining an ID came up again during the hearing.
League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Executive Director Debra Cronmiller urged lawmakers to avoid measures that place undue burden on the voter or erect barriers to voter participation, and explained that while getting a state ID may not require paying a fee at the DMV, the process of getting one isn’t necessarily free or easy for all voters.
“Accessing the DMV to secure state ID is not equally available to all eligible voters,” Cronmiller said. “Some voters face barriers such as a lack of public transportation, long distances, shortened hours, and ADA barriers that the DMV is aware of but has failed to correct in all the years since the law was passed.”
Cronmiller said that casting provisional ballots can be another obstacle as the information about them is not always readily available or updated online and some voters need to be walked through the process. A provisional ballot is one issued to a voter who is unable to provide the poll workers with documentation as required by Wisconsin or federal law. A provisional ballot can be marked at the time, but is set aside and not counted until the voter either returns to the polling place during polling hours to show a photo ID or present a valid voter ID at their clerk’s office before 4 pm on the Friday after the election.
Cronmiller said there are other solutions to election issues, including automatic voter registration and full funding of elections, that lawmakers could be looking at.
Rep. Scot Krug (R-Nekoosa) questioned how the League of Women Voters could oppose voter ID when polling suggests that many support it. Krug and other Republicans repeatedly pointed to recent Pew Research Center polling that found that 81% of voters nationally support requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID.
“The League of Women Voters, as one of the biggest advocacy groups of women in the state of Wisconsin, is going to take an official position you’re anti-photo ID?” Krug asked.
“It has been a part of our official positions for decades. Voting rights are voting rights,” Cronmiller said. “Anything that stands in the way of an eligible voter to execute their right is opposed by the League of Women Voters.”
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