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Wisconsin state agencies on Monday asked a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge to stay his ruling requiring election officials to verify the citizenship of existing voters and those seeking to register.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice filed the motion on behalf of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Department of Transportation, and related state officials. In it, the respondents called Judge Michael Maxwell’s Friday ruling “impermissively vague,” because the order bars election officials from processing new registrations without “verification” of applicants’ citizenship but doesn’t define the verification process.
The filing says that any new citizenship verification process for online voter registration would require months of testing and development, and that disabling the electronic registration system in the meantime would conflict with state law requiring that system to exist.
“The impact would be enormous: Wisconsin receives an average of more than 200 online voter registrations per day,” the filing states, citing a declaration from Robert Kehoe, the election commission’s deputy administrator.
The state Justice Department repeated its argument that a citizenship verification system would exceed what state law requires, noting that the Legislature has expressly required proof of residency for new registrants but not proof of citizenship.
The motion further contends Maxwell exceeded his authority by effectively prohibiting local election officials from processing new registrations without verifying citizenship, even though local officials aren’t party to the case.
The state asked for a stay pending appeal and requested a decision by Oct. 6 or an immediate administrative stay while the court considers the motion.
The election commission declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, spokesperson Emilee Miklas said. Attorney Kevin Scott, who represents a Pewaukee voter who brought the case against the commission, said he was hopeful that WEC would “do the right thing” and implement the ruling.
Local election officials did not appear to be rushing to implement Friday’s order. Paulina Gutiérrez, the Milwaukee Election Commission’s executive director, said she’s monitoring the case. Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fuchs said that she and other clerks weren’t immediately stressing over implementing the decision since it was likely to be appealed.
“We wait until something is final, and that’s when we start to pay attention,” Fuchs said.
Republicans have praised the lower-court ruling as part of their focus on the issue of noncitizen voting. While there’s no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens, GOP lawmakers have used the issue to call for citizenship checks of all voters, even though such measures can wrongly flag eligible U.S. citizens.
In a separate filing, Kehoe said the commission’s four-person software team could create a separate system, but that would mean choosing between keeping the existing online registration system — which doesn’t verify citizenship — and shutting it down entirely, despite hundreds of Wisconsin residents seeking to register every day.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
