GAB Changes Course on Key Issues

This week saw some tension in the Capitol over two key issus that involve the state agency that oversees the state's election process. The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) hearing this week saw the Government Accountability Board (GAB) have to reconsider some of its policies relating to the recall process and the Voter ID legislation because of serious Republican opposition.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the GAB board adopted a policy at their last meeting that Republicans have said would allow recall groups to fill out the names and addresses of voters on pre-made petitions that could be emailed to voters. The pre-made recall petition forms would then only need to be printed, signed and dated and then mailed to the groups that would be organizing potential recall elections. Supporters of the GAB policy said that the pre-made forms would result in a faster and more efficient process because the groups would not have to gather the signatures face-to-face, and the petition signers would not have to fill in their addresses (www.journalsentinel.com).

Republicans on JCRAR raised concerns about the GAB proposed policy and signaled that they may insist that the GAB write administrative rules on the proposed expedited recall petition process. If the GAB is forced to write administrative rules on the matter, those rules would have to be approved by Governor Walker as a result of legislation that passed earlier this year.  The new law relating to Governor's approval of administrative rules would allow Walker to essentially block any GAB policy that makes the recall process more lenient as JCRAR Republicans charged that the GAB's policy would allow.

The other issue that raised JCRAR Republican concerns is related to the Voter ID bill and how it relates to the implementation of allowing college students to vote without proper identification e.g. a student ID instead of a driver's license. To resolve this part of the Voter ID, the GAB has been considering changes to a policy that lets universities include stickers on their student identification cards that would allow them to be used for voting.

The new Voter ID law requires voters to show photo identification at the polls starting next year. Under the new law, university IDs would be allowed for voting if they include signatures and expiration dates and if they expire within two years of being issued. The GAB said last month that universities could provide supplemental information on stickers attached to ID cards that would allow student IDs to be used for voting. The legislative committee raised concerns about those stickers and also planned to require that policy to be written as an administrative rule that Walker could also block.

In response to the committee's concerns on the student ID issue, the GAB Director Kevin Kennedy said he would recommend that GAB allow stickers for signatures but not expiration dates.