by Frank Bergman, Slay News:
Wisconsin’s liberal-majority Supreme Court has ruled 5-2 to block an independent audit of the state’s voter records.
The ruling prevents an effort by a conservative activist to access guardianship records that he sought to compare against the state’s voter registration list.
The decision closes off a potential tool for identifying ineligible voters in one of the nation’s most closely watched battleground states.
The ruling, reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, rejected a lawsuit filed in 2022 by Ron Heuer, who leads the Wisconsin Voters Alliance.
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Heuer had sought access to Notice of Voting Eligibility forms, which are court documents generated during guardianship proceedings.
He wanted to determine whether individuals found legally incompetent remained on Wisconsin’s voter rolls.
Four liberal justices joined with one conservative, Justice Brian Hagedorn, to form the majority.
Conservative Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented.
The ruling effectively bars the public from using guardianship records as a check on voter eligibility.
The majority said the records are protected under state privacy law.
The dissenters argued the court stretched that privacy rationale beyond what the law allows.
Court Cites Privacy Protections
Justice Janet Protasiewicz wrote the majority opinion.
She cited a state statute declaring that “court records pertinent to the finding of incompetency are closed.”
The ruling, Protasiewicz wrote, “is rooted in the legislature’s choice to protect the privacy of individuals subject to guardianship proceedings.”
The majority treated the guardianship forms sought by Heuer as inseparable from the underlying incompetency finding.
