Newly released recordings are showing that workers at seven Division of Motor Vehicles stations across Wisconsin provided inaccurate or incomplete information about the availability of IDs for voting.
Molly McGrath, the national campaign coordinator for VoteRiders, provided the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with unedited recordings of 11 visits to DMV stations. A worker at the DMV station in Hudson told a woman in one of those recordings, “You’re not guaranteed to get an ID card. Nothing’s guaranteed.”
The recordings were made by the group VoteRiders, a group that works to make sure that no eligible citizen is denied his or her right to vote for lack of ID. VoteRiders focuses on states with government-issued voter ID laws or that require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. The new recordings feature a volunteer who asked DMV workers what she would need to do to get an ID for a friend who doesn’t have a birth certificate.
In November, 17 states will have voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Eleven of those states will require their residents to show a photo ID. Many election experts say that the process for obtaining a photo ID can be much harder than it looks for hundreds of thousands of people across the country who do not have the required photo identification cards. Those most likely to be affected are black, Latino, elderly, and low-income residents.
Reportedly, DMV workers in Wisconsin Rapids and Black River Falls, falsely told applicants that no temporary voting credentials were available. A DMV worker in Neillsville reportedly told the woman that getting an ID without a birth certificate could take a few weeks. However, voting credentials are supposed to be processed within six days. A DMV worker in Stevens Point reportedly told the woman to track down a birth certificate from another state without telling her she could get voting credentials if she didn’t have a birth certificate.
According to the recordings, only employees at three stations provided mostly correct information. Those were at DMVs in Adams, Chippewa Falls and Menomonie.
