Liberal group tells judge Wisconsin voters can’t get IDs

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin offices that issue driver’s licenses aren’t open enough hours to issue photo IDs to all the voters who need them before the Nov. 4 election, a liberal group told federal judges in a brief filed Monday.

Wisconsin’s 2011 law requires voters to show a government-issued ID with a photo to vote. Because of legal challenges, the requirement had not been enforced since the February 2012 primary. But a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said Sept. 12 that the law could be used for the Nov. 4 election and other elections while it considers the merits of arguments against the law.

Two civil rights groups asked the entire appeals court last week to reconsider that decision.

One Wisconsin Institute told the court Monday that a significant difference between the Wisconsin case and one involving Indiana’s photo ID law was voters’ ability to actually get IDs. The U.S. Supreme Court found Indiana’s law acceptable.

More than half of Wisconsin’s 92 Division of Motor Vehicle offices are open only two days per week and only three offices are open on Saturdays, the group said. Most offices close by 5 p.m. There’s also “little to no public transportation” to most DMV offices, further burdening voters who lack cars, it said.

“As a result, the DMV service centers are ill-equipped to meet the voter access issues that will almost certainly arise if Wisconsin’s photo ID law remains in effect,” the group says in its brief.

DMV offices issue state identification cards as well as driver’s licenses. Both are acceptable for voting.

One Wisconsin Institute estimated 300,000 Wisconsin voters lack the type of photo ID that will be needed to vote.

Dana Brueck, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice, which is defending the law, had no comment Monday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS