Voter Photo ID Bill a Hot Topic at Town Hall Meeting

Requiring college students to return home to vote or to show a college ID that displays an address could disenfranchise students from voting, some residents told a state lawmaker Tuesday.

Colleges do not include addresses on photo IDs, one woman told state Rep. Paul Farrow at his Town Hall meeting at the Brookfield Public Safety Building.

They might be required to return home to vote — an obstacle that could deter them from voting, she said.

It is the same argument that Democratic state legislators made earlier Tuesday in opposing a bill that passed the Assembly Committee on Elections and Campaign Reform.

"The burden is going to be (college students are) going to have to come home," Farrow said. "Is it difficult for them? Yes."

But he argued that the extra precautions were necessary to overcome concerns about "voter discrepancies." He said it was a discrepancy when large numbers of voters only vote for one race on the ballot, as he said happened with 10,000 ballots in Madison.

What is to prevent students from voting twice — once on campus and then driving home to vote there, Farrow asked.

"Does it happen in Brookfield? I don't believe so," he said. 

Eugene Barufkin, of the Town of Brookfield, repeatedly challenged Farrow on why the photo ID and other restrictions on same-day voter registration were needed. He argued few cases of voter fraud have been found.

"Why even bother changing this part of the system?" Barufkin asked. 

Farrow said, "It's verification. It's deterrence."

He said there were "thousands" of names on state voter lists "that have never been verified" but can not be removed under current rules. 

Farrow said he backed a plan to make ballots cast by same-day registrants be segregated as provisional ballots that would be on hold until or unless the voter would return with a photo ID by the Friday after the election.

Also, early registration would end the Friday prior to the election, rather than the day before the election, he said.

One man expressed concern about projections the voting changes could cost $4.7 million to implement, saying "as a taxpayer" he didn't want to pay for that.

But another resident said he fully supported the photo ID changes, saying it could save the state costly recounts like the one requested by state Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg.

In other issues discussed at the Town Hall meeting:

• Ken Skarie, president of the Richmond School Board, threw his support behind the collective bargaining changes and pension cost shifts to public employees. But he said school districts like Richmond were struggling to make budget and personnel decisions while the collective bargaining changes were up in the air, being litigated in court.

"I'm all for eliminating all the collective bargaining," Skarie said. But in the current limbo, the school district "can't even negotiate wages" with its teachers and other staff. 

The biggest nightmare, he said, would be if the cuts to education in the governor's proposed biennial budget were imposed without the savings in the budget repair bill.

"If we don't realize the savings and the cuts come, our next choice is eliminating teachers," Skarie said.

Farrow agreed the situation was troublesome for school districts statewide, and said the issue likely would not be settled until the state Supreme Court rules on it.

He could not speculate on how long that could take.

Farrow said his office received 500 to 1,000 e-mails a day on budget issues, including orchestrated "blanket emails" that at times do not address any pending issues.

• One man urged Farrow and state lawmakers to require any board that has authority to impose taxes to be elected, not appointed. He cited the state's technical college boards, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and regional transit authorities.

He also urged repeal of recent years' "feel-good legislation," such as allowing the state Department of Public Instruction to ban mascots deemed to be objectionable.

• Others raised questions about rules imposed on southeastern Wisconsin but not other areas of the state, including air emissions testing and reformulated gas.