Wisconsin State Employee Fired as Voter ID Mess Continues

In last week's story about Voter ID in Wisconsin, we learned of a memo that was sent out to DMV employees:

An internal memo from a top Department of Transportation official instructs workers at Division of Motor Vehicles service centers not to tell members of the public that they can obtain voter identification cards free of charge — unless they know to ask for it.

In their zeal to prevent voter fraud, it seems the state is actually trying to prevent some folks from voting. It's likely that the state of Wisconsin was hoping that memo and the implications of the menu would die down quickly, and not attract a lot of national attention. Sadly for Wisconsin, when it comes to voter suppression, the story just keeps on going. The latest update, from the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

A low-level state employee was fired Thursday after he sent an email to his fellow employees telling them about the state Department of Transportation’s policy on giving out free photo identification cards for voting.

Chris Larsen, who had worked in the mail room at the state Department of Safety and Professional Services, sent an email Thursday morning to all employees at the agency’s headquarters explaining that the DOT would provide photo IDs to people only if they specifically asked to have the fee waived.

A couple of hours later, Larsen was fired.

They have free Voter ID's at the Wisconsin DMV. Just don't tell anyone, okay?


cross-posted at MainSt/workingamerica.org