Three potential constitutional amendments could be on your ballot in the coming years, pending approval from the Wisconsin Assembly on Thursday. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin State Senate passed three measures along party lines outlawing private funding for elections administration, codifying existing voter identification requirements, and specifying that only U.S. citizens can vote in state and local elections. According to the Wisconsin Examiner, Brown, Price, Lincoln, and Waukesha counties passed advisory referendum questions that banned outside groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life from contributing to election administration costs. The state’s Voter ID law has been in effect since 2011, and federal and state law bans non-citizens from voting, though it does not explicitly say that only U.S. citizens can vote. Jay Heck from Common Cause Wisconsin says it is only stirring up the base.
Republicans say banning outside groups from providing the grants would help keep local control of the elections. They also say that doubling down on their Voter ID and U.S. citizen voting stances would protect the issues from going through the courts. While the Voter ID measure still has to go through the Wisconsin Legislature before it can go before voters, the potential amendments regarding the election grants ban and specifying that only U.S. citizens can vote in elections could pop up on ballots as soon as April.
