Walker Mentions Ending Same-Day Voter Registration

Governor Scott Walker took aim at Wisconsin’s same day voter registration law during a speech to a Republican audience in California late last week.

While there was talk about ending Wisconsin’s same day registration law last session, the law emerged intact. But that may change if the legislature follows Gov. Walker’s lead. Speaking to a crowd at the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in California, Walker attacked all same day registration laws, “States across the country that have same-day registration have real problems because the vast majority of their states have pollworkers who are wonderful volunteers who work 13 hour days, in most cases are retirees. They just–it’s difficult for them to handle the kind of volume of folks who come in at the last minute. It’d be much better if registration was done in advance of Election Day. It’d be easier for our clerks to handle that. All that needs to be done.”

Democrats blasted the governor’s comments. State Democratic Party Spokesman Graeme Zielinski said the governor was trying to make it harder to vote in a state with a long history of expanding voter rights, “We think that the more people who vote, the better. And I think that Republicans now see that the only way that they can win statewide elections here is if they limit the number of people who vote.”

The Government Accountability Board says Wisconsin’s same day registration law was passed in 1975 and has been on the books since 1976. In 2008, the board says nearly 460,000 voters registered on Election Day. That includes people who were changing their name or address.