A conservative activist suing the state of Wisconsin has provoked concern among the state supreme court’s most liberal justices.
Ron Heuer, a former travel agent who heads a group called the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, thinks that there are Wisconsinites registered to vote who should not be eligible. To prove this, he’s suing the state to get access to guardianship records of these allegedly ineligible voters. Wisconsin law has a provision allowing a court to rule someone incompetent to vote, presumably on the grounds of mental disability. It appears Heuer believes some registered voters are actually legally incompetent and may have been under guardianship for their care.
Heuer is asking the state supreme court to force counties to release records showing when a court deems a person incompetent, so those names can be compared to the voter registration records.
For liberal justice Jill Karofsky, her concern seems to be less about whether ineligible voters are, in fact, registered to vote, and more about the fact that Heuer’s lawsuit might suggest that anything at all could be going amiss in Wisconsin elections. She remarked that Heuer sounded like he was trying to “introduce the fear that there is some sort of illegitimacy” happening in the state election system. “That concerns me deeply,” said Karofsky. It is not clear whether Karofsky is concerned about the potential fact of misconduct, or if she’s only concerned about the reputation of the state’s election system.
Heuer’s lawyer Erick Kaardal said the only concern for his client is that eligible people should be able vote, while those deemed incompetent by a Wisconsin court should not.
At issue in the suit is the balance between privacy and issues of public concern. Guardianship records would disclose details about the private home lives of citizens. On the other hand, they may be necessary to review by outsiders in order to ensure that those ineligible to vote are actually being flagged before they’re registered.
Most mainstream media reports, like justice Karonofsky, do not seem to be interested in whether the law is being adhered to. Instead, they spend much of their coverage implying that the plaintiff is merely a partisan without a legitimate claim, and that allegiance to Donald Trump is the only motivation for suit.
The suit is not likely to be decided before the November presidential elections.
