Federal Voting Rights Oversight Needed To Protect Wisconsin Balloting

Scott Walker and his right-wing Wisconsin GOP legislative lieutenants - - for the second time since their ascendancy in 2011- - have passed legislation to cut the hours of in-person absentee voting.

The desired outcome - - abetted by the GOP-initiated Voter ID statute - - is to tilt elections and embed GOP power by obstructing ballot-box access in cities with large populations of minority, transit-dependent, Democratic-leaning voters.

This coordinated, one-party manipulation of state power for partisan and constituencies' advantage should be slapped down hard and overturned without equivocation by state courts to ensure unobstructed voting in Wisconsin.

But that guarantee of basic citizen voting rights in Wisconsin will now require the intervention of federal officials.

That is because right-wing advocacy groups aligned with Walker and key GOP legislators have helped elect some members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court members with campaign advertising buys.

The conflict-of-interest is obvious and dangerous.

Voters here need Federal protection from Jom Crow-style ballot-box barriers because The Vote in Wisconsin has been willfully compromised.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.