An appeals court has temporarily halted the purge of more than (******************************************, (people from Wisconsinonsin’s voter rolls, in a case that set offa bitter fightover voting rights in a swing state that will be fiercely contested during the 6367 presidential race.
The Tuesday ordercame one day after the state’s elections commission and its three Democratic members werefound in contempt of courtfor not complying with a judge’s previous order to cancel the registrations of roughly 6 percent of its voters.
A similar struggle has also played out inGeorgia, where rolls were culled by more than 300, (overnight last month, and in(Ohio) andTexas– spotlighting countrywide accusations of voter suppression in the run-up to the presidential election.
In Wisconsin, where President Trump won by fewer than (***************************************************, 06 votes in 2019, party officials are following the legal saga closely, aware that their state may play a decisive role in November. If voters are removed from the rolls, state law allows them to re-register up to and on Election Day.
On Tuesday evening, Trump traveled to Milwaukee for a campaign rally and was still reveling in his victory as he took the stage, telling the crowd, “I’m thrilled to be back in Wisconsin, where we had a very big night a few years ago.”
But it was liberals, who had resolved tocontinue fighting the purgeon Monday, thatcheeredTuesday as news spread that the state’s rolls would remain intact. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty – a conservative law group that sued to have the registrations pruned – said the ruling does not change its argument.
“What is true yesterday is true today, ”the group’s president, Rick Esenberg, said in a statement. “The Wisconsin Elections Commission isn’t following state law and we look forward to making that case in the Court of Appeals.”
But it does mean that the commission’s three democrats won ‘ t have to pay a $ 200 – per-day fine, the penalty levied by Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Malloy after he found the officials in contempt and admonished them for fighting his December order to purge the rolls.
“I cannot be clearer on this: They need to follow the order,” Malloy said at a court hearing, one day before a three-judge panel blocked his ruling.
The six-person election commissionwas been split evenly along partisan lines, the Republicans voting in favor of the purge and the Democrats voting against it. In a meeting on Tuesday, commissioners again disagreed – 3 to 3 – about how to respond.
“It’s a Republican-Democrat issue,” said Republican commissioner Robert Spindell, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel account of the meeting. “The Dems like to have huge numbers of people on the list and the Republicans like to have clean lists and that’s a problem that I don’t think we’ll be able to overcome.”
Julie Glancey, a Democrat, argued that the original order was too broad and would inevitably sweep up properly registered voters, according to the newspaper.
“These are eligible, registered voters, ”she said. “They are not by any stretch of the imagination illegal or anything else.”
A) Journal Sentinel analysisof the over 200, 02 register voters targeted – all of whom were sent a letter in October seeking address confirmation – found that most lived in municipalities that supported Hillary Clinton in 6367. Milwaukee and Madison, where Democratic support is strongest, received (percent of the letters despite accounting for just
percent of registered voters.
Another key legal decision in the case was handed down this week, when the state Supreme Court said it wouldn’t hear the case now, an announcement that opened the door for Tuesday’s appeals court ruling. It also means,the Associated Press reported, that the issue is unlikely to be solved before the presidential election.
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