Same-Day Registration Supporters Petition Walker

A group that organized the recall effort against Governor Scott Walker has delivered a petition to him, supporting same-day voter registration.

Fifteen-thousand people signed the petition following comments Walker made recently while addressing Republicans in California. Giving a speech at the Ronald Reagan Foundation, Walkersaid he’d like to end Wisconsin’s same-day voter registration.Eleven states allow this and it’s considered one reason Wisconsin has such high voter turnout. Eric Kirkstein is with the group United Wisconsin, which organized this summer’s recall election against Walker. Kirkstein says state election officials reported no problems with same day registration.

“So this is clearly and unneeded solution to a nonexistent problem,” he says.”Make no mistake. This is motivated purely by politics and is designed to suppress the vote of the nearly 10 percent of voters who vote on election day, mostly young and minority voters.”

One of those young voters is 21-year old Fionna Cahill, a senior at UW Madison. She says she’s moved 5 times in the last 3 and a half years. Each time she has to register to vote in a different location.

“I’ll be moving again in January. I’m hardly alone in this,” she says. “Each year thousands of students across the state change addresses, switch dorm rooms, go to college otherwise have to re-register with every single move. Same day registration allows these students to vote, who otherwise might not”

Majority Republicans have made other election changes. The residency period was lengthened and voter ID was passed. Voter ID was not in place for the most recent election.It was blocked by two Dane County circuit courts. The law is also being challenged in federal court.