• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voter registration>

Wisconsin's top court rules against a vigorous culling of the voter rolls

David Hawkings
April 09, 2021
voting in Wisconsin
filo/Getty Images

Resolving for good what had been the biggest fight in years over voter rolls, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday against making the state aggressively cull its registration lists.

The 5-2 decision means an estimated 72,000 people technically remain eligible to vote next year, when the state expects to host two of the hottest Senate and governor's races in the country. But that seeming victory for the cause of easy access to the ballot box may prove entirely symbolic: The Wisconsin Elections Commission says that not one of those people voted in the presidential election last year, suggesting they may all have died or moved out of state and might not really deserve spots on the roster any more.

That mixed outcome echoes the sharp partisan divide nationwide over voter rolls. Republicans say too many of them are outdated or riddled with inaccuracies and that democracy is best served with proper "maintenance" that rules out any possibility of cheating. Democrats say that the risk of fraud does not merit sweeping "purges" that would end up denying eligible but infrequent voters their rights.


The suit focus on a state law that regulates voter registration and applies to county officials only, not the state's election administrators, the high court majority concluded in an opinion that ended more than two years of litigation.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

In early 2019, the bipartisan Elections Commission sent letters to about 232,000 voters who it believed might have changed Wisconsin addresses, left the state or passed away. It asked them to register at their new address or confirm they were no longer eligible in the state. But the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sued, arguing the state had to drop all those people from the rolls right away.

A judge in suburban Milwaukee agreed, but a state appeals court reversed his decision and the state's top court heard arguments in the case just before Election Day.

By that time, the list of questionable voters had been reduced by nearly three-quarters. Almost 160,000 either registered at a new address, said they hadn't moved, said they had moved, went to prison, were revealed to be deceased or came off the rolls for other reasons.

The remaining 72,000 voters were scheduled to come off the rolls this spring. Meagan Wolfe, the commission's director, said the agency would review the decision to determine how to treat those names now.

But the ruling's long-term effect may be to give municipal clerks as long as 18 months to decide when to cull people from registration lists in one of the nation's premier political battlegrounds. Last fall, for example, President Biden carried the state with just 21,000 votes to spare out of 3.2 million cast, an outcome that survived a two-county recount and numerous lawsuits. Four years before, Donald Trump won its 10 electoral votes by a similarly tiny margin.

"This decision is a clear win for Wisconsin voters," Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said.

The law in question says voters should come off the rolls if they have not responded within 30 days to notifications after there is reliable information they have moved. If the court had ruled the opposite way, thousands of deactivated registrations would have happened automatically every two years.

The decision was authored by Justice Brian Hagedorn, a Republican who was elected last year and has emerged as a swing vote on the court.

voter registration

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Our Staff
13h

Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Joe Weston
13h

With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th
13h

The crook and the fumbler

Lawrence Goldstone
26 January

Pragmatism is the way forward

Dave Anderson
26 January

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Our Staff
26 January
Videos

Video: Meet the citizen activists championing primary reform

Our Staff

Video: Veterans for Political Innovation - Who we are

Our Staff

Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Our Staff

Video: Kevin McCarthy is Speaker, but he's got a tough job ahead

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirst Friday End of Year

Our Staff

Video: Minnesota Gov. Walz asks fellow Democrats to ‘Think Big’ when it comes to fixing voting issues

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Our Staff
13h

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Our Staff
26 January

Podcast: Why we misunderstand independent voters

Our Staff
25 January

Podcast: What does the House Speaker election say about the Republican Party?

Our Staff
24 January
Recommended
Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Podcast: Deepening democracy in the states

Podcasts
Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Ask Joe: Fostering social activism

Pop Culture
With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

With an eye on 2024, some states consider new protections for election workers

Elections
The crook and the fumbler

The crook and the fumbler

Elections
Pragmatism is the way forward

Pragmatism is the way forward

Big Picture
Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Podcast: How the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack impacted politics

Podcasts