Beginning Jan. 23, UW-Madison will start distributing free identification cards that students can use to vote, university officials announced Monday.
Under a new state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, the new UW-Madison ID cards can be used as valid identification for students without a Wisconsin driver’s license or state-issued ID card.
“Students should exercise the right to vote, and as many students who want to should do that,” Hannah Somers, chair of the Associated Students of Madison’s Legislative Affairs Committee, said.
She said the UW-Madison ID cards “will make it a lot easier to vote, especially for out-of-state students and students without a Wisconsin driver’s license.”
Producing new, free cards will cost the university $100,000 over the next five years, an expense Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said comes from UW-Madison’s existing budget, rather than from students.
“We didn’t feel it would be appropriate to charge students a fee for the right to vote,” Bazzell said.
He said modifying Wiscards would cost $500,000, which is five times as much as creating separate cards from less expensive material.
Unlike Wiscards, the university-issued student voter IDs are clearly marked as “VOTER IDENTIFICATION” and will be marked with an expiration date within two years of issuance and space for a signature, as required by the new law.
The UW-Madison voter ID cards cannot be used for any other purpose or service on campus. The university had to make new cards or modify existing students IDs because Wiscards—like university ID cards statewide—do not comply with the new Voter ID law, which was designed to prevent fraud.
Somers said the recently formed Vote Coalition student group is meeting with university officials and hopes to use posters, mass e-mails and other outreach tools before winter break, then make “a really big push” to engage students in the spring.
The Vote Coalition kicks off outreach efforts with a campus-wide “legislation and voter education week” after Thanksgiving.
