Judge again rules early voting restrictions unconstitutional

That didn’t take long. For good reason. A federal judge has struck down an outrageous attempt to make it more difficult to vote in Wisconsin. The judge ruled it was illegal for lawmakers in a very lame lame-duck session to try to restrict opportunities for early voting to just two weeks prior to the election. It was the second time in as many years that the same judge ruled efforts to restrict early voting were unconstitutional. Lawmakers claimed that the restrictions were needed to ensure equal opportunities for voting in Wisconsin, noting that some communities allowed as many as six weeks of early voting opportunities. But that argument doesn’t hold water, because clerks across the state would still have been free to set their own hours, up to two weeks before an election. So much for consistency. And the need varies across the state. Milwaukee may need six weeks to process the votes of those who want to vote early, while Marinette may not. The judge also threw out efforts to put a limit on the use of student ID’s to vote by allowing them for just two years after they were issued. It is shameful that lawmakers want to make it harder for people in Wisconsin to vote, but it is good that a judge has recognized this partisan attempt to strengthen the majority party’s hold on power. Rather than trying to rig the voting process in their favor after democrats captured all five statewide offices in the most recent election, lawmakers should run candidates who better reflect the wishes of Wisconsin voters.