It is either voter suppression or a micro-aggression.
Via Think Progress:
Marquette Law School student Caleb Smith waited more than an hour on Tuesday to cast his ballot in the presidential primary, standing in a line of students of nearly 100 students that snaked around the school’s student union.
“It’s fine, I don’t have class until 5:30,” he told ThinkProgress.
Others were not so lucky. Many students who had come on their lunch break left when they saw the line, saying they had to go to class and would try to come back later. Polls close at 8 p.m., and volunteers with the League of Women Voters told ThinkProgress they were concerned some students would not be able to return. Marquette University employees said the majority of the school’s 12,000 enrolled students were assigned to a single precinct.
While dozens of students stood waiting to vote, the longer wait was for same-day registration — an especially important step for students, who tend to have a new address every year. Students who did not have a Wisconsin drivers license or passport had to wait in yet another line to acquire a voter ID, since Wisconsin’s law does not accept student IDs issued by most of the schools colleges and universities.
Education major Megan Malloy, as she passed her time in line doing her homework on the hallway floor, said she did not know until Tuesday that such an extra step was necessary. “It’s an inconvenience, but it’s not that big a deal,” she said. “At least they have [the ID office] on campus. If it was far away, I think the voter turnout would be a lot less.” […]
Malloy was also far from the only student voter on Tuesday not to know the ins and outs of the state’s newly-implemented voter ID law. The Republican-controlled legislature that approved the law did not budget any funds for educating residents about the requirements, and students doing get-out-the-vote work told ThinkProgress they have seen widespread confusion around the law.
Other campuses across Wisconsin reported problems as well. “There are really long lines at the UW-Madison to get a compliant ID,” said Andrea Kaminiski with the League of Women Voters, a group monitoring the election. “Some students were giving up and leaving.”