A judge has slapped down the Wisconsin election officials by letting them know 30 day in law means 30 days and they can’t just vote among themselfs to exend the deadline to 18 months.
When the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the complaint in October, it argued that state law requires the commission to remove from the active voting rolls voters who hadn’t responded to a recent mailing, made as part of a regular effort to update rolls, within 30 days.
“State agencies comprised of political appointees and unelected staff do not have the authority to invent or amend policy contrary to state law,” the institute’s president and general counsel, Rick Esenberg, said in a statement at the time.
The commission, however, said it was allowing voters to stay on the rolls through the spring of 2021 based on a June vote by the commission.
These notices go to people who have notified another government agency they have moved. Every two years, under Wisconsin law – notice is sent to the address on file with elections that if they don’t respond that they havn’t moved, they are removed (made ineligible) from voter rolls. I havn’t found the number of letters sent, but 234k of them were NOT returned and the wisconsin law says SHALL be made ineligible.
Upon receipt of reliable information that a registered elector has changed his or her residence to a location outside of the municipality, the municipal clerk or board of election commissioners shall notify the elector by mailing a notice by 1st class mail to the elector’s registration address stating the source of the information. All municipal departments and agencies receiving information that a registered elector has changed his or her residence shall notify the clerk or board of election commissioners. If the elector no longer resides in the municipality or fails to apply for continuation of registration within 30 days of the date the notice is mailed, the clerk or board of election commissioners shall change the elector’s registration from eligible to ineligible status. Upon receipt of reliable information that a registered elector has changed his or her residence within the municipality, the municipal clerk or board of election commissioners shall change the elector’s registration and mail the elector a notice of the change. This subsection does not restrict the right of an elector to challenge any registration under s. 6.325, 6.48, 6.925, 6.93, or 7.52 (5).
Judge has done the right thing. Election board can’t over ride state law. IF the law says 30 day, then after 30 days those people should be ineligible and have to re-register.
Link to CNN article (I love putting the liberal media links for the libs here, but the article is on multiple news sites.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/13/politics/wisconsin-judge-remove-voter-rolls/index.html
And here is the link to the Wisconsin law I’ve taken the appropriate section and quoted.
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/6/II/36/1/ae
In my opinion, any election official who voted to ignore the 30 day requirment should be removed from the board. If they ignore that law, what other laws will they ignore or mis-interpret.
– On a side note, those who have been around a while will know this is nothing new for me. But I advocate that every 10 years ALL voter rolls are expunged with the census, and those who want to vote need to re-register every 10 years. Best way to keep voter rolls current, and accurate. I may even go further and support Wisconsins law of every two years sending notice to those that have changed their address with other government agencies. No respons, you are removed.
