A Dane County judge has refused a request from the Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to lift an injunction on enforcing the state's new voter ID requirement. But the director of the Government Accountability Board says poll workers are prepared to implement law if it's reinstated before the April 3rd election.
Two Dane County judges have granted injunctions against the voter ID law. This week Judge Richard Niess rejected a request to lift his permanent injunction. The Department of Justice has filed appeals and it's likely the challenges to the law will end up in the state Supreme Court. Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy says poll workers have been trained and whatever the courts do they're ready to demand photo I.D.'s from voters or to handle voter verification the way they did before the law was passed.
"You know we don't want the public and the clerks being in a yo yo type position," he said. "We did advise the clerks do your training as if photo ID is in place because it easier to say don't implement this than it is to call the poll workers back and say we didn't talk about this because it was on hold and now it's back on."
If the law remains on hold through the April election the GAB may be in a better financial position to cover the costs of the recall elections. The Board's Chief Administrative Officer Sharrie Hauge says the legislature's Joint Finance Committee hasn't allocated additional funds the Board requested to cover administering the recalls.
"The legislature did give us 1.8 million dollars to implement voter ID so if that continues to be a stay and we have savings we'll be utilizing those fund for the recall efforts," she said.
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Hauge says if the courts reinstate voter ID, the Board will have to do some financial reshuffling to find the funds to cover the recall election expenses.
