Meanwhile, Under Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law, Veterans Cards are Not Okay

With the Justice Ginsburg correction in the Texas voter id case today, a number of readers have pointed me to Wisconsin’s voter id law, which apparently rejects a veterans card as proof of valid identification. (The Supreme Court has put the Wisconsin voter id law on hold for this election, though it could well be back.)

Under Wis. Stat. 5.02(6m)(a)3, “An identification card issued by a U.S. uniformed service” is valid for voting. But this does not include an ID card issued by the Veterans Administration, which is not a uniform service.  I understand that at the trial in Frank v. Walker, some witnesses who had VA cards testified that they could not use that card and could not easily get another form of acceptable identification.

The language of the Texas statute is not much different from Wisconsin’a. It allows a “a United States military identification card that contains the person’s photograph that has not expired or that expired no earlier than 60 days before the date of presentation.”

Texas has said it accepts the VA card, which perhaps is a “military identification card” but not one “issued by a U.S. uniform service.”

So in that sense, Wisconsin’s law is stricter than Texas’s.  At least in Texas, I think people who lack the VA card should follow Sarah Silverman’s advice to Get Nana a Gun. Concealed weapons permits are A-OK in Texas (though apparently not in Wisconsin).

Got that?

 

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