By Hope Karnopp, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
About 63% of Wisconsin voters approved a Republican-led referendum to elevate the state’s voter ID law to the constitution. At the same time, 55% voted to elect a liberal justice to the Supreme Court, according to unofficial results. What gives?
Some social media users raised suspicion about the differing results Tuesday night, including one conservative X user who doubted voters would split their ticket by supporting voter ID while electing a “leftist” judge.
But it wasn’t a surprise that Wisconsin would do both at once. Voter ID is an extremely popular policy in Wisconsin, and even a slight majority of Democratic voters support it.
The Marquette University Law School poll, one of the most reputable in the country, polled registered Wisconsin voters in late February of this year and found 77% supported the law.
That included 96% of Republicans, 52% of Democrats and 81% of independents. So, it tracks that some Democrats who voted for liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford also voted to pass the referendum.
But supporting the law doesn’t necessarily equal wanting it placed in the state constitution. Of the 864 voters polled, 73% favored adding it to the constitution. That broke down to 97% of Republicans, 44% of Democrats and 74% of independents.
Even before Tuesday, it looked extremely likely the referendum would pass. The results didn’t align exactly with the high support shown in the survey, but public opinion polling isn’t meant to be an exact prediction of the final results.
A majority of voters in nearly all 72 Wisconsin counties — with the exceptions of deep blue Dane and Milwaukee — voted ‘yes’ on enshrining the voter ID law in the state’s founding document. Meanwhile, Crawford won 23 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
It was even a narrow margin in Milwaukee County — 51% voted ‘no’ while 49% voted ‘yes,’ according to unofficial results. That wasn’t the case in Dane County, where Madison is located. About 65% voted ‘no’ while 35% voted ‘yes.’
