UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank outlined the university’s efforts to educate students on voter ID information in a Friday blog post.
Blank said in the post that after the 2011 voter ID law was implemented, she and other administrative officials worked with legislators to ensure that students across the UW System could obtain voter ID cards.
Responding to a suggestion that Wiscards be updated to act as a form of voter ID, Blank explained in the post that the process would be costly and challenging.
Blank also said reissuing Wiscards to comply with the two-year renewal requirement for voter ID would not remove any “hassle factor” for students, because they would still need to pick up a separate card at some point during their time on campus.
UW-Madison will issue a survey after the November general election to gauge the workings of the voter ID cards, but Blank said in the post she anticipated a maximum of only 6,400 out of 43,000 students needing a card, due to some out-of-state students using absentee ballots and because “a substantial share of students will choose not to vote.”
Associated Students of Madison Chair Madison Laning responded in a Friday release to Blank’s post, saying ASM has been pushing for Wiscards to become eligible as voter ID cards for the last five months.
Laning pointed out that many college students are first-time voters, saying the university should be “encouraging them to vote more than ever.”
“Instead of pointing out the lack of students that vote, our university should be finding every solution to ensure we increase that number,” Laning said in the release.
ASM has registered 450 students to vote in 2016, according to the release, and roughly 125 of them do not have Wisconsin-issued IDs and will need a separate voter ID card.
Laning described civic engagement's relationship to the Wisconsin Experience, saying ASM will continue to educate students on the importance of voting and the various documents needed to do so.
“Through state policies like the tuition freeze, and the budget cuts to the UW System, we can see the impact legislators have on our universities,” Laning said in the release. “And we should be striving to ensure all students have access to the polls.”
Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said that while money and time considerations forced universities not to use student IDs as eligible identification, the agency has been successful in working with schools to publicize the changes.
“We’ve had a very good dialogue,” Kennedy said at a press conference Monday. “The university system has contacted us, we’ve talked to them. There’s been a lot of policy considerations they’ve had to make, if they make the student IDs permanent … But we’ve had a good conversation.”
The GAB, which oversees elections in Wisconsin, is rolling out a campaign intended to publicize the voter ID changes ahead of the Feb. 16 and April 5 elections. Kennedy added that students are of particular interest, along with senior citizens and other groups who are more likely to lack identification.
“Students are going to have a harder time being prepared so we’re doing this outreach to make sure they’re prepared,” Kennedy said.
