After Signing Law Disenfranchising ID-less Voters, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Closes 10 DMV Offices

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Earlier this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became one of the many GOP governors to sign a law disenfranchising voters who do not have a photo ID — a law thatdisproportionately affects elderly voters, young voters, students, minorities and low-income voters. Having disenfranchised tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters, Walker is now making it harder for many of these voters to obtain the ID they need to regain their right to participate in the next election:

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is working on finalizing a plan to close as many as 10 offices where people can obtain driver’s licenses in order to expand hours elsewhere and come into compliance with new requirements that voters show photo IDs at the polls.

One Democratic lawmaker said Friday it appeared the decisions were based on politics, with the department targeting offices for closure in Democratic areas and expanding hours for those in Republican districts. [...] Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the state Department of Transportation to reconsider its plants to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center. The department plans to expand by four hours a week the hours of a center about 30 minutes away in Watertown. [...]

“What the heck is going on here?” Jorgensen said. “Is politics at play here?”

Of course, no one has been more aggressive in waging the GOP’s war on voting that Scott Walker. Walker stripped state workers of their right to organize to strengthen the GOP’s position in the next election, and he gutted the state’s public financing system, which allows candidates to run effective campaigns without pleading for money from big dollar donors, and used this money to pay for his voter ID scheme.

Lest there be any doubt, there is absolutely no legitimate purpose behind Walker’s voter ID law. Although Republicans justify these voter disenfranchising laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud, a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that only 44 one-millionths of one percent of votes are cast by people who commit voter fraud