The University of Wisconsin-Parkside is one of hundreds of taxpayer-funded institutions of higher education where leftist groups are pushing a targeted get-out-the-vote effort to help Democrats win. And Milwaukee Administrative Law Judge Eric Defort is just fine with that.
In a three-page decision released Monday, Defort summarily recommends that the Wisconsin Elections Commission side with the university in a complaint filed by election integrity advocate Ron Heuer and the Wisconsin Voter Alliance. The complaint alleges the Kenosha university is violating the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) “by engaging in university-sponsored student get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives.”
WVA argues that the voter act preempts government-sponsored GOTV and voter registration drives, affirmed by opinions from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And the complaint alleges voter information pulled from the state’s voter information system is discriminatorily being used to assist in the campus GOTV effort — at UW-Parkside and elsewhere. As the complaint states, the university has worked with the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) “in a public-private exchange of student private data” to support Parkside’s “engagement in government-sponsored student get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives.”
It’s all in an effort to reach a traditionally faithful bloc of Democrat voters, while using state resources, the plaintiffs argue.
UW-Parkside officials assert that they have not implemented a discriminatory voter registration list, but that the campus is merely the site where the GOTV effort is being conducted — by left-wing activists. The administrative law judge agreed.
“Moreover, UW-Parkside submitted an affidavit attached to its
