WI GOP uses law to monkey-wrench elections, tilt outcomes

Sometimes in Wisconsin these days the ruling party's official election tampering is aimed at the masses, and sometimes it's targeted at a specific and perceived partisan threat, but either way you slice it it's still undemocratic baloney.

On the one hand, Republicans this week in Badgerland watched their anti-voter state laws waste citizens time and discourage their participation to help tilt election night outcomes to the GOP column:

Multiple media outlets reported long waits, particularly in student precincts in areas like Eau Claire, Madison, and Milwaukee. One Green Bay election official attributed the long lines and bottlenecks to the Badger State’s strict photo ID law, saying it “just plain slows things down.” The new requirement made voting a multi-step process for some voters, who waited in one line to register, another to get a form of ID acceptable under the law, and finally another line to cast a ballot. 

And let's hear an expert and sitting GOP Congressman explain the Voter ID true goal: 

In an interview with a local Milwaukee TV station, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Campbellsport) said the photo ID law would help the GOP presidential nominee win Wisconsin in the fall. “Now we have photo ID,” he said, “and I think photo ID is gonna make a little bit of a difference as well.”

Or take it from a former WI GOP state senate staffer who recently said: 

You wanna know why I left the Republican Party as it exists today? Here it is; this was the last straw: I was in the closed Senate Republican Caucus when the final round of multiple Voter ID bills were being discussed. A handful of the GOP Senators were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters.

And Wisconsin Republicans just used state power again to create another legal manipulation - - this time to bar specific candidates from running in elections which could weaken GOP legislative majorities. Doesn't get much more brazen than this:

Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill into law banning county executives from serving concurrently in the Wisconsin Legislature. 

The Republican bill means Democratic Senate candidate Mark Harris will have to quit his $102,834 job as Winnebago County executive if he's elected. As a senator, he would make $50,950.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has said Harris' candidacy prompted the bill. Fitzgerald.

And while Grothman has let the GOP's dirty little secret about Voter ID out of the bag, the GOP's strengthened 5-2 friendly majority on the State Supreme Court means these undemocratic practices are going to manipulate the electoral process and keep the GOP and their special interest sponsors fat and happy in Wisconsin for a long time.