Voter ID requirement added to state constitution
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — By a margin of nearly 63 percent, Wisconsin voters have agreed to add voter identification to the state constitution.
According to unofficial vote totals, 1,435,948 people voted for the ballot measure to add voter identification to the Wisconsin Constitution, representing 62.8 percent of the vote, while 852,186 people voted against the ballot measure, representing 37.2 percent of the vote.
The question voters saw on the ballot was “Photographic identification for voting. Shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?”
The proposed text that would be added to the Wisconsin Constitution reads as follows: “Section 1m of article III of the constitution is created to read: [Article III] Section 1m (1) No qualified elector may cast a ballot in any election unless the elector presents valid photographic identification that verifies the elector’s identity and that is issued by this state, the federal government, a federally recognized American Indian tribe or band in this state, or a college or university in this state. The legislature shall by law establish acceptable forms of photographic identification, and the legislature may by law establish exceptions to the requirement under this subsection.
(2) A qualified elector who is unable to present valid photographic identification on election day shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot. A provisional ballot may not be counted unless the elector presents valid photographic identification at a later time and place as provided by the legislature by law.”
Voter ID law
Wisconsin already has a voter ID law that has been in effect for nearly 10 years, so adding voter ID to the constitution does not change the law that is already in place.
The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature enacted a strict voter ID requirement in 2011.
If voters do not have an ID that is acceptable to present at the polling place, voters are allowed to vote by provisional ballot.
In order for the provisional ballot votes to count, voters must then present an acceptable ID to election officials by 4 p.m. the Friday after election day.
The voter ID law faced a number of lawsuits, but it ultimately survived the legal challenges and went into effect in 2016.
31 million
According to an article published by Wisconsin Watch in 2023, between 2012 and 2022, Wisconsin residents submitted more than 31 million ballots in elections ranging from United States president to town clerk.
Out of those 31 million ballots, there were 192 prosecutions for election fraud, or .0006 percent.
The majority of the election fraud — 109 cases — involved people voting who were on probation and often did not know they were not allowed to vote, according to the article.
Fraudulent voting — such as voting in two precincts or submitting an absentee ballot and also voting in person — accounted for 40 cases, with the remainder of the cases ascribed to “unknown” or “other.”
Requiring voter identification does not identify people who are on probation and are not allowed to vote, even though the majority of election fraud cases in the last 10 years, 109 out of 192, were related to someone on probation who voted.
The Wisconsin Watch article notes that one man had moved from a township into a city but maintained an address in the township, where he continued to vote. In one election, he cast a ballot in the city where he lived and in the township where he still had an address.
The man told authorities he did not know that was it was wrong to vote in two different precincts.
Voter impersonation
The only election fraud that voter identification prevents is voter impersonation.
Out the 192 election fraud cases from 2012 to 2022, only five of those cases were due to voter impersonation, according to the Wisconsin Watch article.
That amounts to five votes out of more than 31 million votes cast.
Critics of the voter identification law say that requiring a voter ID prevents many more people from voting who are eligible to vote than it does to stop people who are trying to vote fraudulently, according to the article.
Wisconsin will now join four other states that have added voter ID to the constitution: Arkansas, Mississippi, Nebraska and North Carolina.
