Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer Files Lawsuit Against Scott Walker’s Voter Suppression Tactics

A new lawsuit from Hillary Clinton’s legal counsel is taking aim at
Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Party’s efforts to suppress the vote in Wisconsin.

Rick Hansen of the Election Law Blog reported on the complaint:

This lawsuit concerns the most fundamental of rights guaranteed citizens in our representative democracy—the right to vote. That right has been under attack in Wisconsin since Republicans gained control of the governor’s office and both houses of the State Legislature in the 2010 election. Indeed, since 2011, the State of Wisconsin has twice reduced in-person absentee (“early”) voting, introduced restrictions on voter registration, changed its residency requirements, enacted a law that encourages invasive poll monitoring, eliminated straight-ticket voting, eliminated for most (but not all) citizens the option to obtain an absentee ballot by fax or email, and imposed a voter identification (“voter ID”) requirement. These measures were intended to burden, abridge, and deny, and have had and will have the effect of burdening, abridging, and denying, the voting rights of Wisconsinites generally and of African-American, Latino, young, and/or Democratic voters in Wisconsin in particular.

As set forth below, these and the other provisions challenged in this Complaint (the “challenged provisions”) violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10301, and/or the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, and/or the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The challenged provisions should therefore be declared illegal and enjoined.

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Hillary Clinton’s top campaign attorney has filed a similar lawsuit in Ohio. These lawsuits are proof that the Clinton team is planning on being very proactive and aggressive in the fight against Republican voter suppression tactics.

It is smart for Clinton’s representation to file these lawsuits instead of the campaign itself. The campaign will still have the option of legal action, and the Justice Department will be very active in protecting voting rights.

Democrats have been on to Republican voter suppression tactics for years, which is one of the main reasons why the laws have not tipped a presidential election to the Republican Party yet.

Any person who has their vote suppressed is one person too many. Scott Walker has been very open about his plan to rig the election in Wisconsin through voter suppression. He is on par with Rick Scott in Florida in terms of willingness to manipulate the composition of the electorate for Republican gain.

Hillary Clinton is already pulling out all of the stops to make sure that every eligible voter gets their vote counted in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association