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[Image courtesy of FranklinNow]

Few states in the nation had a more contentious 2012 election cycle than Wisconsin, where a series of high-profile recalls and fierce fights over voter ID repeatedly divided the Badger State for nearly two years.

While those fights have subsided somewhat, the hard feelings between the two major parties obviously lingers, given the votes last week on a series of relatively minor election law changes. The Washington Post’s GovBeat has more:

As if Wisconsin needed another debate to divide its citizens, the voting wars are coming to Madison. The state Senate last week passed four measures, three almost exclusively on party-line votes, to make minor changes to election day procedures.

One measure would require two poll workers of opposite party affiliation to oversee securing ballot containers. Another would require any job that needed two or more poll workers to be performed by members of different parties. A third bill would mandate damaged or problem ballots be marked in a uniform manner.

And a bill that is likely to cause the most outrage among Democrats would require election workers to record the type of documents newly registered voters use as proof of residence. That bill passed the Senate on a straight 18-15 party-line vote.

Now, if you had no sense of the state’s recent political history, you would think these changes are all quite minor – and in some cases consistent with common practice in other jurisdictions, where poll workers of opposite parties often work together (and even cooperate) to ensure the orderly operation of the polls. But in light of Wisconsin’s fresh partisan scars, even these relatively straightforward changes are sparking deep debate:

The new rules are relatively minor tweaks to the state’s election rules, a far cry from a law requiring voters to show identification at the polling place the Republican House and Senate passed back in 2011. That law was blocked by a state judge, a decision that’s being appealed in federal court.

The fact that even the smallest changes to state law come down to party-line votes highlights the partisan divide in a state that’s accustomed to compromise. Democrats see the Republican-initiated changes as the first step toward more regulations that will make it harder for their voters to cast a ballot.

Voting rights have “been an ongoing dispute between the parties going all the way back to voter ID, and there’s just very little trust,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The view among Democrats … is that these bills are either unnecessary or wasteful,” Mayer said. “The general view among Republicans is that the election system is unsecured.”

While Wisconsin’s experience is admittedly extreme (one commenter suggests that the GOP sponsor of the bills be “tarred and feathered for her disgusting, antiquated belief system”), we are seeing this phenomenon emerging elsewhere as fights about election policy put both sides on high alert. The challenge for election officials across the nation is how to navigate the rising tide of partisanship across the country; in the current environment, the twin dangers are either gridlock or wild policy swings depending on who’s in power. Neither is particularly attractive for election officials seeking efficient and predictable procedures for conducting elections.

In short, going forward don’t be surprised if even little things cause big controversies. It’s an uncomfortable reality for election officials but one which is likely unavoidable for the foreseeable future.

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