by Judi Pool

Sheboygan Liberty Coalition

I took a vacation day off on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 to go to Madison with the hopes of convincing the Senate Committee on Labor, Elections and Urban Affairs and the Assembly Committee on Elections and Campaign Reform to vote against four bills that were being pushed through quickly again without WE THE PEOPLE’S input. Unfortunately, I naively thought a “hearing” was being held to listen to what normal people thought about SB 640, SB 645, AB 892 and AB 895.

These bills would transfer the responsibility of a voter’s registration from the individual to the Government Accountability Board and would be done without the consent or notification of the individual. If there is a Driver’s License or a State ID card # in the DOT database, this information will be transferred to the GAB. The possibility of error or fraud is much too high to risk.

I arrived promptly at 10:00 a.m. and filled out a card with my name and address and had to mark whether I was there to speak FOR or AGAINST the bills. I eventually figured out why that information was requested. The first three hours of testimony consisted of “expert witnesses” and sponsors of the bill. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin favored the bill but was opposed to the provision stating that ballot challenges could only be made by an elector from the same ward, and wanted Special Registration Deputies (SRDs) to be exempt from being charged with a felony if they unwittingly submitted voter registration cards with inaccurate information.

The next speaker was Justin Levitt from the Brennan Center for Justice from the New York University School of Law. Mr. Levitt claimed that is it time to “modernize” voting and bring it in to the 21st century. Call me stupid, but I don’t believe it is that hard to bring your I.D. in to your county clerk’s office to register to vote. Mr. Levitt also told us that we are denying the “fundamental” right to vote to convicted felons. Excuse me? And all this while I thought felons lost their “rights”. Of course, I now understand how Mr. Levitt comes to his conclusions. Some of the members of Brennan’s Advisory Board include Alec Baldwin, Arianna Huffington and Larry Rockefeller.

Not to be outdone by the out-of-towners who came to tell us how to run Wisconsin, David Becker from the Pew Center of the States came from Washington, D.C. to help the Wisconsinites to learn how to reform our old-fashioned election ways. Mr. Becker comes to us as the director of the Democracy Campaign for People of the American Way (a politically liberal advocacy group). Mr. Becker holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley. Now by this time I think anyone in the room could figure out which side of the aisle this guy was on.

Next up was Scott Ross from One Wisconsin Now,a progressive liberal think tank. Mr. Ross stated he had 1600 signatures on a petition for the Election Reform bill. It was now very clear that the idea was to use up all of the time with the committee’s cronies.

We finally asked if anyone was going to be able to speak AGAINST the proposed bill. Only after that did the committee call on other people. It was apparent once we took our turns stating why this set of bills was not good for Wisconsin, the committee chairmen were not interested in anything we had to say. Chairman Smith and Senator Coggs were both rude to people who spoke or asked questions. One gentleman was told that he apparently did not understand the process, and was told that the committee would ask HIM questions and not the other way around.

We realized that this hearing was not meant for our legislators to listen to their constituents, but for them to slip through 72 pages of legislation that the people of Wisconsin did not have a chance to read or vote on. These bills open up the chances to cheat in highly democratic areas. Please go to www. legis.state.wi.us and read SB640, SB645, AB892 and AB895. Then contact your senators and assemblypersons and ask them to vote NO to the Election Form Legislation. We would rather stay with having to show a state-issued ID card or DL to prove who we are and that we are a citizen with the right to vote.