Wisconsin voter ID law still causing confusion, stifles turnout in Milwaukee, voting advocates say

Nearly a decade ago, Wisconsin traded its designation as one of the easiest places to cast ballots for stricter voting rules that set off a still-ongoing debate over voter access.

The implementation of a state law that requires voters to show photo identification increased ballot security, Republican authors argue, but the side effects have disproportionately hit Black voters in Milwaukee who are more likely not to have a photo ID and less inclined to seek one than their white peers, experts and advocates say.

"You don't realize the effect it has on you until it happens to you," Anita Johnson, who has spent the last eight years helping Milwaukee voters navigate the state's voter ID law, said in an interview. "And then you're like, 'Do I want to go through this? I mean, is this really worth it?' It really stops people from voting."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2024 is examining the experience of Black voters in the state’s largest city, exploring issues that affect turnout. The reporting is supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

Since the state's voter ID law survived a number of legal challenges and went into effect for the 2016 presidential election cycle, a host of studies and advocacy groups have popped up to study and help voters navigate the law.

Their findings show a drop in accessibility that began in 2012, when Republicans took control of state government, and accelerated after the voter ID law became practice.

"It's a small factor compared to not liking the candidates or not caring about the outcome," said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center. His university colleagues published a 2017 study on the effect of the law.

"But many thousands of people would have named (the law) as their primary barrier for not participating."

The study by UW-Madison political scientist Ken Mayer, who did not respond to interview requests, concluded 16,800 to 23,250 voters in the two counties with the highest number of Democratic and Black voters — Dane and Milwaukee counties — did not vote in the 2016 election because of the state's voter ID law.

Key portions of those surveyed said they did not vote because they did not have ID that would allow them to, or did not believe the IDs they had could be used under the voting law. The study found the ID law disproportionately affected Black voters and low-income people.

Those who work to help voters navigate the law say confusion over its rules persists more than a decade after the law was signed.

Republicans who championed the law say it has provided a needed level of voting security and downplay the confusion characterized by the law's opponents.

Photo ID law has added new layers to voting process

Under Wisconsin's law, voters must present a driver's license, state ID, passport, military ID, naturalization papers or tribal ID to vote. A student ID is acceptable only if it has a signature and a two-year expiration date.

Those who do not have an acceptable ID can cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if they return with the proper ID within a few days of the election.

To obtain a state ID card, voters must complete an application at a DMV customer service center, where they are required to provide proof of name and birth (through a birth certificate, passport or certificate of naturalization), Wisconsin residency, U.S. citizenship and their Social Security number.

Johnson, who worked in the past with voter access advocacy group VoteRiders and now helps train others to help voters, said she has likely helped more than four dozen people get a photo ID since the law went into effect.

The most complicated was a man who was a military veteran who could not obtain a state ID because, among other hurdles, he did not have a birth certificate and could not obtain one because he did not go by the name initially given to him. It took six months, she said.

"I found that in the African American community, and I'm sure in other communities as well, the birth certificate was the main thing that people did not have," Johnson, who is Black, said. "Probably because the birth was by a midwife, or they move. In my community, people move a lot and they lose their documents, or their documents are stolen from them, and they really don't know what to do in order to retrieve those documents."

And many others simply don't realize that they can get a state photo ID, Johnson said.

"They're afraid to go to the DMV and get anything," she said. "They don't know that you can walk in there and say I need an ID so I can vote and then not be charged for it."

Sam Liebert, All Voting is Local’s Wisconsin state director and a former municipal clerk, said Black men feel “a duty and obligation” to get out and vote, but Wisconsin’s voter ID rule makes that a challenge.

Liebert said All Voting is Local supports ID options that don't include a photo. In some other states, state or federal employee IDs, membership IDs and certificates of citizenship, permits to carry concealed weapons, and paychecks are acceptable identification.

“Expanding the types of acceptable ID would be a game changer,” Liebert said.

Mayer’s study found ID laws also confuse voters about which IDs are compliant, leading some voters who do have qualifying IDs to mistakenly believe they are invalid, due to technical and administration details that are frequently misunderstood.

For example, while Wisconsin driver's license holders are required to update address information with the state Department of Transportation when they move residences, they aren’t required to obtain new physical licenses until their current one expires. And under the voting law, the address on a voter's photo ID does not have to be their current address.

Still, Black Leaders Organizing for Change executive director Angela Lang said she was nearly turned away from voting in 2018 after her driver's license didn’t reflect her new address. She eventually obtained a ballot, but said she suspected others would’ve left discouraged, without casting a ballot.

“I'm sure this happens to other folks,” Lang said. “You're adding a whole extra layer into it.”

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Black Democrat who represents Milwaukee, said she views the law as a direct attempt at suppressing Milwaukee's Black voters.

Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin and the only one where voters of color make up the largest demographic group, with Black residents people accounting for nearly 40% of the city population.

Black voters in Milwaukee play a crucial role in the outcome of each presidential contest in Wisconsin, the nation’s quintessential battleground. They make up less than 10% of the state’s electorate but carry enough voting power to deny national Democratic victories if turnout in the city’s Black neighborhoods is down.

"When they got voter ID, that just unleashed all of their shyness, as it were, about suppressing our votes," Moore said.

Wisconsin's voter ID law has been subject to litigation

Republican lawmakers and former GOP Gov. Scott Walker enacted the state's first photo ID law for voting in 2011, but it wasn't until the 2016 election that the law was set into practice.

Litigation over the voter ID law has been going on since shortly after the measure was approved seven years ago. The law has largely been upheld, but courts have modified parts of it to make it easier for people who don’t have birth certificates to get free IDs.

In July 2016, a federal court ruled that the law was unconstitutional and that an alternative to showing an ID, such as signing an affidavit attesting to identity, must be permitted, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Later the same year, an appeals court ruled that the law could be implemented as long as the state kept its pledge to provide temporary free IDs to those in need, and to publicize the law, according to the group.

In 2016, U.S. District Judge James Peterson in Madison struck down restrictions on early voting and a prohibition on allowing early voting in more than one place in each municipality. He found those laws discriminated against minorities.

"The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities," Peterson wrote.

In response, Milwaukee and Madison expanded their voting hours.

'I don't hear about it'

Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Brian Schimming said he views characterizations of the law's effects being confusing to be hyperbole.

He said photo identification requirements are ubiquitous in daily life, making the law a seamless fit with others, like obtaining a marriage license or opening a bank account.

"The claims that there's voter disenfranchisement or a disparate impact, or whatever, I haven't seen a single study from any state that backs that up," Schimming said. "It is part of people's literal, almost daily lives, and certainly weekly lives. If we do any kind of anything, you have to have a photo ID."

Schimming said the goal of the law for Republicans was to improve ballot security rather than indulge baseless claims of massive voter fraud.

"People understand the gut check that we want secure elections," he said. "It's not about proving massive voter fraud. It's about making sure that everyone's identity as a voter is protected. It's really about (confirming) people's identity."

Schimming said he doesn't put a lot of stock into Mayer's study.

"I think that people will take a study or two and try to trumpet it as evidence that there's a problem. But, you know, I haven't heard Tony Evers talking about this much lately, or any other Democrat legislator," he said. "The Legislature is good about trying to ameliorate whatever pressures there might be. I'm not seeing (issues) and I don't hear about it."

'We need to be able to get in here and vote'

"I'm a firm believer that folks can't fully participate in democracy until their basic needs are met," Lang said. "If you can't even have safe, affordable housing, and we knock on your door saying, 'Hey, vote for this person,' it feels a little out of touch."

Lang's group and dozens of others include the voter ID law as part of their menu of services they help voters navigate during each election, during which the groups largely work to turn out voters for Democratic candidates.

Jake Spence, Wisconsin state coordinator for VoteRiders, the nonprofit group that helps voters obtain photo identification, said Black voters seek the group's services more often than their white counterparts in Milwaukee.

"We see voters of every demographic, you know, just about every socioeconomic bracket ... but in terms of the people we see there's definitely an outsize need in the Black community," he said.

He said for the 2023 spring election, the group helped about 300 people obtain photo identification in order to vote.

Research shows ID possession is lower among minority populations. But even individuals with the right documentation to obtain an ID may lack the time, transportation or money often needed to acquire an ID at the appropriate government office, creating additional hurdles that hurt Black voters in Milwaukee disproportionately.

One voter, Ligia Naba of the northwest side of Milwaukee, tried to update her address at the Milwaukee County clerk's booth during the Juneteenth Festival, but she didn’t have her driver's license with her.

“A lot of us don't have cars right now, since gas is so high. We don't have our IDs with us or our licenses with us, and then we can’t properly register," she said. "We are the majority, even though we're called the minority, and we need to be able to get in here and vote."

William Marshall of River Hills, who also attended Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration, told the Journal Sentinel state politicians should understand that voter ID laws also disproportionately affect formerly incarcerated people, citing his uncle's experience struggling to obtain a photo ID since serving a prison sentence.

“A lot of that stems from a lot of people having criminal backgrounds that prevent them from getting a license, which then prevents them from having access to vote,” Marshall said.

“I would like people who have paid their debt to society to be fully reinstated and to be refranchised in the system and be allowed in to partake in politics and public policy.”

Molly Beck and Rachel Hale can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

A grant from the Pulitzer Center supported reporting for this report. All work was done under the guidance of Journal Sentinel editors.

Voter ID laws in the U.S.

According to Ballotpedia, as of April 2024:

• 24 states require photo ID to vote, including Wisconsin

• 11 states accept forms of identification other than photo ID

• 15 states don't require identification

What photo IDs are acceptable in Wisconsin

• Driver's license

• State ID card

• U.S. passport

• Tribal ID

• Military ID

• U.S. Certificate of Naturalization

• Wisconsin student ID (must be issued by an accredited Wisconsin college and include name, signature, photo, issue and expiration date)

• Source: Wisconsin Elections Commission

How to get a state ID card in Wisconsin

Wisconsin state ID cards, which can be used as voter ID, are issued by the DMV. The application requires proof of your identity, citizenship/legal status, Wisconsin residency, and name and date of birth.

Common documents that are accepted as proof include certified birth certificates, Social Security cards and utility bills (including a cellphone bill). A full list of documents can be found at bringit.wi.gov/how-do-i-get-free-state-id-card.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin voter ID law stifles turnout of Black voters, advocates say