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| WISCONSIN VOTER ID CASE WON'T LIKELY BE RESOLVED BEFORE THE RECALL ELECTION |
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WPR News - Wisconsin voter ID case won't likely be resolved before the recall election
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Friday April 20, 2012
by Gilman Halsted
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(MADISON) Oral arguments are over in one of the four lawsuits challenging the state's new Voter ID law. But it's unlikely any of the suits will be decided before the June 5th recall election.
The new law was suspended last month when two Dane County judges issued injunctions against it. This week, Judge David Flanagan adjourned the bench trial in the challenge brought by the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera. He ordered attorneys on both sides to submit written arguments by June 18th. Assistant attorney general Steve Means argued that UW political scientist Kenneth Meyer who testified for the challengers didn't have the expertise to conclude that the new law would be a burden on hundreds of thousands of voters who lack photo ID's, "It's our position professor Meyer is not a qualified experts on those topics, that those or legislative judgments, not judgments to be made by political science professors."
But Judge Flanagan ruled that Meyer was qualified to perform the statistical analysis he presented calculating how many eligible voters would be affected by the law. Richard Saks the attorney for the challengers says that's a key argument in the lawsuit, "It's the number of people who are adversely affected and burdened by this law which Professor Meer has cogently and convincingly demonstrated affect over 300,000 voters in the state of Wisconsin."
It's still possible that the state appeals court could decide before June 5th to lift a permanent injunction against the law put in place by Judge Richard Niess in another challenge brought by the state League of Women Voters. And there are still two federal lawsuits pending challenging the law's constitutionality.
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