Report: Ending Same Day Wisconsin Voter Registration Would Cost $14.5 Million

When Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) announced he would no longer support his own plan to do away with same day voter registration in Wisconsin, he struck a blow to voter suppression and may have saved millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.

A new report from the Government Accountability Board suggests that ending the state’s same day voter registration program, which allows eligible voters to register to vote at the polling station on election day, would cost several state agencies a combined $14.5 million:

The staff of the GAB, which oversees the state’s elections, studied the idea and in a preliminary report in December estimated its costs for the first two years after a change would increase by $5.2 million.

The estimate increased dramatically Monday for two reasons.

Since December, four affected state departments — transportation, workforce development, health services and children and families — have submitted their own cost estimates totaling between $9.9 million and $10.5 million, said GAB spokesman Reid Magney.

After the GAB’s initial report in December, when the projected cost of ending ending same day registration was a third of the latest estimates, Gov. Walker told reporters that he would stop his pursuit to end the program, citing the cost. But other Republican legislators in the state may still opt to pursue a bill to strip away same day registration, and Walker has not signaled that he would veto a potential bill. Nationwide, Republicans have waged war on voter rights in the last several years, supporting discriminatory voter ID laws while simultaneously seeking to end early voting and same day registration with little regard for the costs, both financial and otherwise.

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The DNC seems to be sitting out the Wisconsin recall.

Alternate title: Eau de Flopsweat from #wirecall Democrats.

Alernate-alternate title: DOOM.

You know, when I saw this secondhand whine from Wisconsin Democrats upset that the DNC apparently wasn’t prepared to throw half a million dollars at the general recall election, I assumed that this would be resolved. I mean, really: the Left has already thrown away tens of millions of dollars; what’s a bit more? Admittedly, not throwing utterly horrible money after bad (we’ve passed the ‘throwing good money after bad’ stage already) would be the right answer, in a strictly utilitarian sense; but the state party is in a bad way right now. They sort of need an indication that the President cares for more than his own election, right?

Well… that’s apparently not going to happen. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Obama’s deputy* campaign manager Stephanie Cutter whether the DNC would be sending money earmarked for the recall, and Ms. Cutter said… nothing in particular. And definitely nothing that would commit the DNC to giving out money.

TODD: The last time you were on the show we talked about the Wisconsin recall. I’d asked whether the president would be supportive, if the party was going to be supportive. You said that it’s possible. Obviously there’s a stake, that you “have stake in the election; we believe that the governor has penalized working families across the state, so it’s possible. We certainly want to see a good outcome there.” This is the idea of the DNC helping out. Wisconsin state party says the DNC has not ponied up any money. You guys control the DNC. The Obama campaign and DNC are one in the same. Are you going to pony up money to the recall election in Wisconsin?

CUTTER: I don’t know the answer to that question, on the money.

I’m still looking for the video of this… but as Jim Geraghty notes: “If the answer is not ‘yes,’ it is ‘no.’” And the answer is almost certainly ‘no,’ given that not even PPP/dKos/SEIU can really find good news for the Democrats with regard to recalling Scott Walker. 50/45 Walker/Barrett (safe link), no change in a month, and everybody they talked to was EAGER to go out and vote in June. The DNC will have enough trouble as it is with trying to get the Anti-Elvis elected; they don’t need this complication.

I’d say ‘Sorry about that,’ except that it’d be a lie of such magnitude that I might actually fear for my soul.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Take a good look at Ms. Cutter, by the way: because that’s as about as high a position in the Obama campaign team as a woman is likely to reach.

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