The see-saw battle between "voting rights" advocates and supporters of the voter ID law in Wisconsin has swung back toward voter integrity as an appeals court reversed the ruling of a trial court that severely weakened the provisions of the law. At issue is the order from the lower court that citizens could present an affadavit listing the reasons they were unable to obtain valid ID. As Rich Hasen of Election Law Blog points out, the exemptions were too broadly drawn so the appeals court reinstated the provision regarding what constitutes valid ID. Hasen also points out that this is not the end of challenges to the law. In an order issued today, the Seventh Circuit in Frank v. Walker has put on hold the softening of Wisconsin’s voter id law which a trial court had ordered a few weeks ago. That softening required Wisconsin officials to accept an affidavit from a voter that he or she had a reasonable impediment to getting one of the narrow ids WI allows for...(Read Full Post)