## Facts

- Wisconsin required voters to present approved photo identification to vote.
- To accommodate eligible voters lacking documents needed for a standard DMV-issued ID, Wisconsin created the Wisconsin ID Petition Process (IDPP), allowing applicants to seek a free voting ID without producing all typical records.
- Under the IDPP, an applicant initiates the process at a DMV and receives a receipt (temporary credential) intended to function as valid voter ID while the DMV verifies identity and citizenship and attempts to obtain supporting records.
- Plaintiffs (advocacy organizations and individual voters) alleged the IDPP was confusing and poorly administered, causing some eligible voters substantial delays in receiving permanent IDs.
- Before the November 2016 election, the court ordered temporary relief requiring receipts for IDPP applicants to be valid voter ID for that election and requiring voter education about the IDPP.
- After appellate proceedings, the district court reconsidered the IDPP’s operation on an updated record reflecting post-2016 administrative changes and practices.

## Issues

1. Whether the IDPP, as implemented after prior orders and administrative revisions, imposed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the receipt/temporary-credential feature and related procedures sufficiently reduced any burden so the voter-ID regime satisfied federal constitutional and statutory requirements, including the Voting Rights Act.

## Decision

- The court granted the state defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining IDPP-focused claims.
- The court denied further injunctive relief directed at the IDPP and the voter-ID regime on the post-remand record.
- The court held that, as structured and implemented at the time, the IDPP provided a sufficiently accessible path for eligible voters lacking documentation, chiefly through the prompt issuance of receipts usable for voting.
- The court concluded the burdens shown were not severe in the aggregate and did not justify invalidating the regime under the governing standard.

## Legal Principles

- Challenges to election regulations that burden voting rights are evaluated by balancing the magnitude of the burden against the state’s asserted interests (*Anderson–Burdick* framework).
- A voter-ID system is more likely to satisfy constitutional review when the state provides a workable alternative for eligible voters who cannot obtain standard identification, including temporary credentials usable for voting while verification occurs.
- When the burden on voters is not severe, the regulation is generally sustained if supported by legitimate state interests and a reasonable fit between means and ends.
- Federal courts may require compliance with concrete, election-access safeguards but generally avoid continuing, open-ended supervision of election administration absent proof of systemic failure.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Wisconsin’s revised ID petition process and receipt-based temporary credentials, concluding that the updated procedures provided a realistic method for eligible voters without documentation to obtain usable identification and that the remaining burdens did not violate federal constitutional or statutory protections.


One Wis. Inst., Inc. v. Thomsen, 490 F. Supp. 3d 1338 (W.D. Wis. 2020)