Federal Judge Throws Out Limits on Wisconsin Voting, Other Voting Restrictions
A federal judge in Madison ruled Friday that parts of Wisconsin’s voter ID and other voting laws are unconstitutional, among them newly imposed limits on in-person absentee voting that he said were unfair to minority, largely Democratic voters.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson, in a 119-page ruling issued late Friday, said that the state Legislature tailored that part of the law to curtail voting in Milwaukee, specifically “to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African-Americans.”
“Wisconsin has the authority to regulate its elections to preserve their integrity,” Peterson wrote, “and a voter ID requirement can be part of a well-conceived election system. But … parts of Wisconsin’s election regime fail to comply with the constitutional requirement that its elections remain fair and equally open to all qualified electors.”
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