A state committee voted for a 60-day extension of the state’s voter ID law Tuesday.
The vote comes
Wisconsin enacted a statute requiring voters to present one of several acceptable photographic identifications in 2011. ID cards issued by the DMV are one acceptable option, in addition to a passport or Wisconsin driver's license.
The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted to extend the emergency voter ID rule, put in place to ensure qualified applicants could obtain voter ID before the election next month.
The emergency rule creates a 60-day temporary renewable ID card receipt usable for voting purposes while the petition application is being processed.
The rule also articulated communication expectations of both DMV staff and the petitioner, including the efforts to locate required documentation.
Last week, audio recordings of exchanges between DMV staff and members of VoteRiders, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization dedicating to defending citizens' voting rights, showed staffers at DMV around the state had been giving false information about voter ID.
The Department of Transportation officials said all DMV staff were going through a training initiative this week to ensure their understanding of the process, according to Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb testified in the hearing Tuesday.
Some lawmakers still criticize the law as an obstruction to voting.
"Wisconsin has discouraged our residents from voting by making it far too difficult through the voter ID law. By creating the myth of voter fraud, and preying on fear to gain support for restrictive laws, paranoid Wisconsin Republicans have done a disservice to our state," said Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit. "We are a month away from a major election, and there is mounting evidence that voting and voter registration has become chaotic and complicated by design."
