In response to today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, this joint statement was released by Voces de la Frontera and the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP:
“Today the majority of the State Supreme Court has betrayed their duty to protect the constitutional right to vote for Wisconsin’s most vulnerable citizens. It has been said many times that this is a most fundamental right, a sacred right, guaranteed and protected by not only the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, but also by Article 3, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution.
We all know the reasons to enact this law, given by its proponents, do not hold water. We are grateful and comforted by the fact that Judge Adelman found this ugly tactic of voter suppression to be unconstitutional in the federal case, and that decision must be cherished.
Today’s decision veers from the Wisconsin tradition of protecting voting rights, and it is a clear case of defending a law that is designed to suppress the rights of hundreds of thousands of minority and low-income voters, elderly and disabled persons and students.
Folks like Joel Torres, a Milwaukee man who was unemployed and had to take several days to secure the necessary documentation to vote and seek support of his family to advocate on his behalf. And Joel is not alone. Nearly 300,000 other qualified voters will be potentially affected if this law were to be implemented.
It is especially tragic and ironic that this decision was made on the cusp of the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement’s “Freedom Summer”, which fought so hard to defend voting rights for African-Americans.’
We encourage all to make every effort to vote in the upcoming elections on August 12th and November 4th, and we thank our partners, plaintiffs and witnesses, and our legal team.”
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