[EL] Madison (WI) new law this week requiring landlords to distribute voter reg forms

Thu Jul 19 10:24:32 PDT 2012

I'm curious: what is the constitutional basis for essentially requiring
citizens to obtain legal assistance in order to cast ballots?

Lori Minnite

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Joe La Rue <joseph.e.larue at gmail.com>wrote:

> Adam,
>
> I have great sympathy for people like Mrs. Lee, and I acknowledge there
> are some like her. However, I think progressives have turned the few
> examples like Mrs. Lee into a parade-of-horribles, in an effort to
> frustrate a very common sense solution to the possibility that non-citizens
> may be voting. Let's admit that, just as there are few documented cases of
> fraudulent voting, there are also few Mrs. Lees. However, there is a great
> potential for much fraudulent voting so long as we do not have photo ID
> requirements, but not a great potential for many Mrs. Lees.
>
> That said, that doesn't help the few Mrs. Lees who are out there. What's
> the answer for them? May I suggest that those progressive attorneys who
> spend so much time arguing against voter ID laws instead give some of it
> pro bono to Mrs. Lee and contact the state of Georgia on her behalf, as
> well as her Senator and Representative, and get her situation taken care
> of. It seems to me that would be a better use of time.
>
> Joe
> ___________________
> *Joseph E. La Rue*
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> email: joseph.e.larue at gmail.com
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> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Adam Bonin <adam at boninlaw.com> wrote:
>
>> Joe,****
>>
>> Wilola Lee, 59, was born in rural Wilkerson County, Georgia. She was
>> raised by her grandmother, who moved her to Philadelphia in 1957, where she
>> has lived ever since. Ms. Lee finished the eleventh grade, married, and
>> raised two children, one of whom is a former school principal and now works
>> for the Pennsylvania state government. Ms. Lee worked for the Philadelphia
>> Public Schools for many years, including work with special needs children.
>> Her husband passed away six years ago. Ms. Lee has been voting for decades
>> and worked as a poll worker in the city of Philadelphia. She has been
>> trying for nearly ten years to get a birth certificate that she will need
>> to get a photo ID to vote, but the state of Georgia has told her they have
>> no record of her birth. She’s been voting in nearly every election for the
>> past 30+ years, but cannot get photo ID to vote in PA this year.****
>>
>> She’s not a stupid woman, Joe, and I’ll assume you’re a pretty smart
>> guy.  Tell us how she’s supposed to obtain a photo ID sufficient to comply
>> with Pennsylvania law.****
>>
>> (Similar examples here:
>> http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/applewhiteetalvcommonwealt/voteridclients.htm
>> )****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Adam C. Bonin
>> The Law Office of Adam C. Bonin
>> 1900 Market Street, 4th Floor
>> Philadelphia, PA 19103
>> (215) 864-8002 (w)
>> (215) 701-2321 (f)
>> (267) 242-5014 (c)****
>>
>> adam at boninlaw.com****
>>
>> http://www.boninlaw.com****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> ** **
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Joe La Rue <joseph.e.larue at gmail.com>
>> *To:* Dan Johnson <dan at kchrlaw.com>
>> *Cc:* Election Law <law-election at uci.edu>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, July 19, 2012 6:40 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Madison (WI) new law this week requiring landlords
>> to distribute voter reg forms****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I laugh aloud at the silly progressives, like those who issued this press
>> release, who assert that Republicans push for voter ID is un-American and a
>> war on voting. What rhetoric! And what complete nonsense. ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> This supposes that placing sensible restrictions on who can vote is
>> contrary to our American values. Yet we've always had such restrictions. The
>> Founders created a system in which many states allowed only property owners
>> to vote. Were the Founders un-American? Today, in every state and federal
>> election, only those 18 and older may vote, and only those who live in the
>> jurisdiction in question may vote. Are we all un-American for those
>> requirements?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> In this age in which we have some 12 million people in our country
>> illegally and therefore ineligible to vote, Republicans are trying to
>> institute a common sense safeguard. Requiring voter ID helps assure only
>> citizens cast ballots. Efforts to block voter ID only frustrate that goal.
>> Perhaps that's the true progressive end game: perhaps they want
>> non-citizens to be able to vote. Regardless, their fight against common
>> sense voter ID laws makes it more likely that some will.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Contrary to progressive claims, Republicans aren't trying to keep
>> minorities from voting. Unlike progressives, we believe minority citizens
>> are smart and capable and certainly not too stupid to figure out how to get
>> an ID if they don't already have one. In short, we Republicans believe
>> minority race citizens are just as capable as white people and so do not
>> need to be coddled. Progressives, though, have such a low view of
>> minorities that they cannot imagine them having the intelligence and
>> capability to acquire IDs, and instead insist that ID laws will
>> disenfranchise them. I, for one, abhor that type of prejudice.****
>>
>>
>> On Jul 18, 2012, at 11:35 PM, Dan Johnson <dan at kchrlaw.com> wrote:****
>>
>> Innovative news on the voter registration front (the attack back in the
>> War on Voting continues)...****
>>
>> *From:* Progressive Advocacy <dan at ProgressivePublicAffairs.com>
>> *Date:* July 18, 2012 7:14:51 PM CDT
>> *To:* dan at ProgressivePublicAffairs.com
>> *Subject:* *Progressive Advocacy*****
>>  Progressive Advocacy <http://djwinfo.blogspot.com/>
>> <http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy>
>> ****
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Madison WI and Washington State attack back on the war on voting<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy/%7E3/oLTdrytwJNE/madison-wi-and-washington-state-attack.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
>> ****
>>
>> Posted: 17 Jul 2012 10:45 PM PDT****
>>
>> Fantastic news.
>>
>> Progressive state and local governments are attacking back on the
>> Republican's anti-American war on voting by implementing forward-thinking
>> laws and policies that reduce the barriers between citizens and their
>> ballots.
>>
>> Yesterday, the Madison (WI) City Council passed an ordinance<http://madison.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=1144324&GUID=D002BEF2-80C7-4F85-97BD-5AB5E0FAE4F8>adding the voter
>> registration form<http://www.cityofmadison.com/election/voter/documents/VoterRegistrationApplication-English-WithArrows-Fillable.pdf>to the pile of paper documents that landlords must distribute to tenants
>> when they move in. This is now law, just in time for the August move-in for
>> UW-Madison students. Half the housing units in Madison are rental units and
>> a large percentage of those units turn over every year<http://host.madison.com/article_e1b34b38-c8b8-11e1-a53d-0019bb2963f4.html>
>> .
>>
>> As Alder Bridget Maniaci<http://madison.legistar.com/PersonDetail.aspx?ID=79730&GUID=41E80667-D780-4522-8E21-903D7DA04DEE>,
>> the lead sponsor of the proposal explains, providing voter registration
>> information to citizens when they move into a new place makes sense, since
>> that's when people are changing their address (and they are probably
>> unaware that they must proactively tell some obscure unit of local
>> government they have moved in order to vote months later). From the
>> Isthmus <http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=37268>:
>>
>> ****
>>
>> The way citizens in the United States vote is based on where they live,
>> Maniaci adds, which means it is sensible to provide them with voting
>> information when they change addresses.
>> "To provide to tenants voter registration forms at the time they move in,
>> when most individuals are in the process of changing all of their other
>> household information, everything from Netflix to their post-office address
>> to the DMV, that's a very natural time to do this," she says.****
>>
>> As a bonus, getting citizens to register to vote early is cheaper for the
>> city clerk to process than registering people in the crunch leading up to
>> the election, so distributing these voter registration forms will save
>> taxpayers some money.
>>
>> On the West Coast, Washington State's Secretary of State is unveiling an
>> app that will allow users to register to vote through Facebook. Since
>> Washington State already uses online voter registration, pulling the
>> data from a user's Facebook account and importing it into the voter
>> registration program will make it easier for people to register<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018708721_apusvoterregistrationfacebook1stldwritethru.html>-- and people can tell their friends about how they registered to vote,
>> creating more of a social norm of democratic self-governance through
>> participation.
>>
>> Congratulations to Washington and Madison (named after two Founding
>> Fathers, coincidentally) for further implementing the great democratic
>> spirit of our American Republic.****
>>
>> ****
>>
>>
>> <http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:yIl2AUoC8zA><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:63t7Ie-LG7Y><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:dnMXMwOfBR0><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:F7zBnMyn0Lo><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:V_sGLiPBpWU><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:qj6IDK7rITs><http://feeds.feedburner.com/%7Eff/blogspot/ProgressiveAdvocacy?a=oLTdrytwJNE:ynrWmsSCK2Y:gIN9vFwOqvQ>
>> ****
>>
>> ****
>>
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>> ** **
>>
>> --
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