The Fitzgerald brothers requested Monday that a legislative committee review the legality of a statewide policy that allows universities and colleges to put stickers on student identification cards for students to vote under Wisconsin's new voter ID law.
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board decided earlier this month to allow stickers on student IDs with the information now required to vote—an issuance date, a student signature and an expiration date—under the Republican-backed law.
This move came after critics of the law argued it would marginalize student voters originally from outside the state, because no Wisconsin college currently has IDs with the necessary details and the process to change IDs would be costly.
However, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Speaker of the Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald, R- Horicon, asked the Joint Committee to review administrative rulesin order to examine the GAB's decision to allow stickers, which they said will hinder ""clean"" and ""fair"" elections in Wisconsin.
""Elections are supposed to be a true measure of the will of the people,"" said Jeff Fitzgerald in a statement. ""The legislature has a responsibility to make sure that ethics and elections laws are properly enforced and not misinterpreted.""
""We have a process in place to make sure that this non-partisan board is enforcing the Legislature's laws in a non-partisan way,"" Scott Fitzgerald said in a statement.
They also requested the committee review the GABs plan to allow recall petitions downloaded online to have pre-printed information.
The committee will meet Tuesday to discuss the legality of the GAB's initial decisions.
The same day the Fitzgerald brothers requested the law be reviewed, state Rep. Andy Jorgenson, D-Fort Atkinson, criticized the Walker administration's use of $1.1. million from a public campaign fund to implement it.
The Wisconsin Election Campaign Fund, which uses public money to give grants to ""underdog"" candidates, is empty, according to Jorgenson.
The bill would restore the money, and re-implement the public financing program that has helped fund 11 current Wisconsin lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.
""The dollars taken were never the state's to use. They were the peoples given in the hope that the underdogs, not just the well-connected, could guide the future to our state,"" Jorgensonsaid in a press conference Monday.
""It's time we put it back and restore some measure of the public trust,"" Jorgenson urged.
