Jauch Says Voter ID Bill Disenfranchises Voters

In a spirited statement released Thursday, State Senator Bob Jauch (D-Poplar) took great issue with the involvement of Republicans in establishing voter identification requirements in Wisconsin.

"Republicans have zero respect for Wisconsin voters," Jauch said. “The Republicans insistence in requiring a state issued identification card to vote, they will inconvenience and potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of legal voters who have done absolutely nothing wrong or illegal in the past."

Jauch described the world of Republicans as one of fantasy.

“Contrary to the mythological world they live in, this bill is simply unnecessary. Wisconsin has a long and proud history of clean elections, and there simply is no evidence to the contrary," Jauch said. "There is zero evidence of fraudulent voting in northern Wisconsin and only microscopic examples statewide."

The northern lawmaker's office contacted every county clerk in the 25th Senate District and asked for examples of voter fraud and found only one case – a 91-year-old woman who voted in person after she forgot that she had sent her absentee ballot in for processing, according to Jauch.

"There is integrity in our election process. The only fraud is the GOP's political effort to jam this bill down the throats of Wisconsin voters in time for the April elections and deny legal voters from exercising their right to vote," Jauch said. "The Republicans have deliberately misled the public into believing that their goal is to improve the integrity of our elections when the true motive is to suppress legitimate voter participation."

Jauch said 175,000 citizens over the age of 65 do not have driver's licenses, and 70 percent of those are women.

"Most of the elderly have been responsible voters for over half a century but now they are being told they must get a ride at least 50 miles round trip to obtain an identification card to enable them to continue their constitutional right to vote," Jauch said. "It is an outrageous and burdensome requirement that I would expect in Moscow but not in Wisconsin."

Jauch charged that Republicans do not understand the effect voter identification will have on rural citizens who do not have regular access to offices of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.

"The lawmakers pushing these restrictive voting requirements live in urban areas where DMV offices may be more accessible so they seem to ignore the reality that limited access to DMV services will make it virtually impossible for many rural senior citizens to obtain the identification card." Jauch said. "The Spooner DMV office is scheduled to be open only one day between now and the April election. No one in their right mind would seriously apply this new requirement if they understood that the consequence would be to deny these legal residents the opportunity to comply with voter id requirements."

Jauch said the voter identification legislation will make it more difficult to vote.

"The legislation addresses a phony problem that doesn't exist and instead of improving the integrity of our voting process the legislation will make it more difficult for citizens to have free and fair access to cast their ballot," Jauch said. "Improving voter participation and strengthening the electoral process ought to be every public official’s goal but disenfranchising voters is unconscionable in our democratic society."