Doyle vetoes voter ID, school voucher bills

Duluth News Tribune ^ | April 29, 2005

[Founding Father]

Doyle vetoes voter ID, school voucher bills

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a plan to require voters to show government-issued photo identification, saying Friday the requirement would disenfranchise poor and elderly voters who lack IDs.

The governor's veto came three days after Republicans hand-delivered the bill to Doyle's office as they urged him to sign a law they said would improve the integrity of Wisconsin elections.

Doyle, a Democrat, said there were better ways to clean up Wisconsin's electoral system than a bill that would have driven away thousands of potential voters.

"While requiring a Voter ID bill might seem like a good idea at first, it will do nothing to correct the management and process problems that have been identified in our elections," Doyle said in a statement. "Instead, it would make voting more difficult for about 100,000 senior citizens who don't have driver's licenses - many of whom live in nursing homes."

Doyle also vetoed a bill Friday to expand a state program that pays for poor Milwaukee students to attend private schools. The bill would have allowed 1,500 more students in Milwaukee to enroll in the school voucher program.

Republicans who control both the Assembly and the Senate said they would immediately schedule votes to try to override Doyle's veto of the voter ID bill, but they did not appear to have enough votes to succeed. The bill passed 21-12 in the Senate and 64-33 in the Assembly, just short in each chamber for the two-thirds necessary.

Under the bill, voters would need to present a Wisconsin driver's license, a nondrivers ID issued by the Department of Transportation or a military ID. Without one, they could cast a provisional, or challenge, ballot.

Doyle vetoed a similar bill in 2003, but Republicans said they addressed several of the concerns he had identified.

The latest bill allowed the state to issue free IDs to residents who could not afford the $9 cost, and eliminated the ID requirement for voters who regularly use absentee ballots, such as people in nursing homes.

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[Founding Father]

Rhetorical question: Why are democrats against fair elections?

[Txsleuth]

Just another case of the dems not taking YES for an answer---

They made it free to get ID and easy for older people that vote absentee---but NO not good enough, what a joke Dems are!!!

[sport]

I can't tell you.

I don't even know why they should be because even when Republicans win, the Democrats remain in control. A/L/A the U.S. Senate.

I don't know what they are worried about.

[KenmcG414]

Of course! The Dems rely on fraudulent voting. They need the illegal alien vote, the felon vote but keep the absentee military vote out.

[Txsleuth]

Is it Wisconsin that has the same day registration, where you can register and vote on the same day....therefore people can just wander in the state and vote for people and issues that they know nothing about?

[53543freedom]

I despise that idiot Doyle. I did not vote for him in 2002 (I voted for Ed Thompson, Tommy's brother), I definitely will not vote for him in 2006. As for the question as to why Democrats do not want fair elections; they know they cannot win a fair election. That is why they need criminals to vote for them.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

That's correct. And Doyle just sealed his fate as a one term Democratic Governor. Move over Tony Earl!

[whereasandsoforth]

What a transparent scuzzbucket Governor Doyle is! "I'd rather see the integrity of our voting system go down in flames than have an old person or a poor person have to comply with a common sense system", said Governor Doyle. "Damn the idea!"

[ClaireSolt]

Most people in nursing homes are not competent to vote, anyuway.

[Teacher317]

And what of those who cannot afford a stamp to mail a ballot... or gas money to drive to the polls... or those who cannot afford to take public transportation to the polls.

Why those are all blatant examples of a poll tax, and Right-wing efforts to disenfranchise all minorities!

[Blood of Tyrants]

But they ARE for fair elections. As long as THEY get to make the rules, change the rules in the middle, interpret the rules, enforce the rules, and ignore the rules whenever they think it will keep them in power.

[kittymyrib]

It would be harder for the dirty Dems like Doyle to bus in voters from IL to pad their numbers on election day. If you need a driver's license to get a library card, to cash a check at the grocery store, to get on a plane, then I don't think it's asking too much to prove your identity and where you live when you cast a vote.

[swilhelm73]

The legislature should immediately offer up a bill requiring exactly as much verification for voting as for buying alcohol.

It may, I would think, make Doyle's support for voter fraud all the more obvious.

[Allosaurs_r_us]

," Doyle said in a statement. "Instead, it would make voting more difficult for about 100,000 senior citizens who don't have driver's licenses - many of whom live in nursing homes."

 

Doyle vetoed a plan to require voters to show government-issued photo identification, saying Friday the requirement would disenfranchise poor and elderly voters who lack IDs

 

I cannot believe he said this! The bill contradicts every reason he gave for not signing it. For heaven's sake who in the world elected a moron like this. Wisconsin should be proud!

 

The latest bill allowed the state to issue free IDs to residents who could not afford the $9 cost, and eliminated the ID requirement for voters who regularly use absentee ballots, such as people in nursing homes.

 

Of course the MSM jumped right on this slight discrepancy, right? The newspaper didn't even call him on it in their own stinkin' story!

 

Ah the eletist intelligent DumbocRat party! Tell me again Hitlery, how your party is going to take things away from me for my own good.

[LouD]

I despise that idiot Doyle. I did not vote for him in 2002 (I voted for Ed Thompson, Tommy's brother)

Actually, if you voted for Thompson, then you did vote for Doyle - But I can understand how someone who voted for Ed Thompson and helped hand over the Governor's office to the rats would lack the cognitive ability to grasp that idea.

[53543freedom]

I had my reasons for voting the way I did. And I have my reasons for voting the way I will from now on--All Republican in 2006.