League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network, Inc. v. Scott Walker

¶ 69. {dissenting.)

Who are to be the electors .. . ? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States.

The Federalist No. 57 (1788) (James Madison).

¶ 70. Today the court follows not James Madison —for whom Wisconsin's capital city is named — but rather Jim Crow — the name typically used to refer to repressive laws used to restrict rights, including the right to vote, of African-Americans.

¶ 71. Indeed the majority opinion in NAACP v. Walker1 brings the specter of Jim Crow front and *393center. It invalidates costs incurred by a qualified Wisconsin voter to obtain an Act 23 photo ID as an illegal de facto poll tax.2

¶ 72. The right to vote is "a sacred right of the highest character."3 The Wisconsin Constitution explicitly confers the right to vote upon all qualified individuals as specified in Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution:

Every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.

So fundamental and sacred is the right to vote, the Wisconsin Constitution allows legislative regulation of voting in only a few enunciated areas. Wis. Const, art. Ill, § 2.4

*394¶ 73. The right to vote is "a fundamental political right, because [it is] preservative of all rights."5 Accordingly, the right to vote is the most protected of rights:

The right of a qualified elector to cast a ballot for the election of a public officer, which shall be free and equal, is one of the most important of the rights guaranteed to him [or her] by the constitution. If citizens are deprived of that right, which lies at the very basis of our Democracy, we will soon cease to be a Democracy. For that reason, no right is more jealously guarded and protected by the departments of government under our constitutions, federal and state, than is the right of suffrage. It is a right which was enjoyed by the people before the adoption of the constitution and is one of the inherent rights which can be surrendered only by the people and subjected to limitation only by the fundamental law.

State ex rel. Frederick v. Zimmerman, 254 Wis. 600, 613, 37 N.W.2d 473 (1949) (emphasis added).

¶ 74. When an individual who is qualified under the Wisconsin Constitution goes to the polls to vote, no legislative action may prevent that person from casting a ballot:

*395[A]n act of the legislature which deprives a person of the right to vote, although he has every qualification which the constitution makes necessary, cannot be sustained.

State ex rel. Knowlton v. Williams, 5 Wis. 308, 316 (1856).

¶ 75. Yet under the majority opinion, an individual who has fulfilled every requirement to vote — he or she is a citizen of the United States, is a resident of Wisconsin, is over the age of 18, and is registered — can nonetheless be denied the right to vote for failing to produce a government-issued photo identification enumerated in Act 23,6 such as a driver's license or receipt therefore, a State identification card or receipt therefore, a military identification card, a United States passport, certain certificates of United States naturalization, an identification by a federally recognized tribe, or certain university and college identification cards.7

*396¶ 76. These Act 23 photo IDs are not mandated in the Wisconsin Constitution as a qualification to vote.8

¶ 77. The State may require verification of the identity of the voter, but Act 23 severely restricts and limits the form of identification that enables a qualified voter to cast a ballot. Rather than merely verify identity, Act 23's requirement conditions the right to vote on possession of a restricted list of identifying documents; no other form of proof of identity than an Act 23 photo ID allows a qualified voter to verify identity and cast a ballot. By restricting verification of identity to only certain government-issued photo IDs, Act 23 does not condition the right to vote on verification of identity. Instead, Act 23 conditions the right to vote on production of a particular identity card. Requiring a specific *397photo ID is an additional qualification on the right to vote, and is therefore impermissible under the Wisconsin Constitution.

¶ 78. Without any evidence that in-person voter impersonation is a problem in Wisconsin,9 the voting restrictions that the majority opinion approves today give Wisconsin the most restrictive voting laws in America,10 laws that systematically disenfranchise entire classes of individuals who are without the required Act 23 photo ID. For example, an estimated 23 percent of persons aged 65 and over do not have a Wisconsin driver's license or other Act 23 photo ID.11

¶ 79. Qualified and registered Wisconsin individuals who voted in the last election may be barred from voting in the next election under today's majority opinions in NAACP and the instant case unless they obtain an Act 23 photo ID. Their vote is now contingent upon possession of a specific ID, not their constitutional qualifications to vote or their identity. The possession of an Act 23 photo ID may be further contingent on the discretion of an agency administrator who determines *398whether an individual can obtain an Act 23 photo ID.12 "These disenfranchised citizens would certainly include some of our friends, neighbors, and relatives."13

¶ 80. I write in dissent to discuss both the instant case and the NAACP case.

¶ 81. First, the two cases address the constitutionality of the same Act 23 but are inconsistent.

¶ 82. According to NAACP, the fees imposed to obtain an Act 23 photo ID constitute an impermissible de facto poll tax.14 Thus Act 23 creates an unconstitutional precondition on the right to vote, according to NAACP. A charge to comply with Act 23 creates a severe and unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, according to NAACP15

¶ 83. In the instant case, the court, addressing the same Act 23, concludes that no precondition to voting has been created. This inconsistency between the two cases is unexplained.

¶ 84. How can the de facto poll tax be unconstitutional in the NAACP case, while the court declares all of Act 23 constitutional in the instant case as not imposing any additional qualifications for voters? Isn't NAACP precedential in the instant case?

¶ 85. Additionally, the NAACP majority opinion is internally inconsistent in failing to invalidate various fees and costs associated with obtaining documentation *399necessary to obtain an Act 23 photo ID. Fees and costs imposed on a person constitutionally qualified to vote are an integral part of the Act 23 photo ID requirement.

¶ 86. Second, I articulate the key principles from our case law that guide the high and exacting standard of judicial scrutiny required for review of legislation regulating the right to vote.

¶ 87. Neither NAACP nor the instant case applies Wisconsin's voting rights jurisprudence to interpret the Wisconsin Constitution in the present case.

¶ 88. Indeed, the two opinions apply different standards of review to gauge the constitutionality of Act 23 under Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution. How can that be? The same Act 23 is challenged in both cases as unconstitutional under Article III of the state constitution. Both cases present a facial challenge. The plaintiffs in both cases assert that Act 23 imposes a burden on qualified voters. No persuasive reason is given for the different standards of review in the two cases.

¶ 89. Our state's case law outlines key principles that protect the right to vote in the face of legislative election regulations. The "presumption of constitutionality"16 applied by the majority opinion in the instant case is wholly inappropriate under longstanding state law for the protection of the fundamental, sacred right to vote.

¶ 90. Third, I apply the principles of the Wisconsin voting rights cases to the instant case and conclude that the League of Women Voters and the circuit court are correct: Act 23 unconstitutionally adds a qualification to the right to vote.

*400¶ 91. If a qualified voter fails to produce an Act 23 photo ID, Act 23 bars that person from voting even though that voter meets all the qualifications enumerated in the Wisconsin Constitution and meets all the statutory voter registration requirements. Thus Act 23 deprives qualified, registered Wisconsin voters of the right to vote, based solely on their failure to meet a legislatively established precondition to voting. Such deprivation amounts to an impermissible legislative amendment of the Wisconsin Constitution to add a voter qualification.

¶ 92. Today's holding, along with the holding in NAACP, undermines the very foundation of our democracy and deprives individuals of the most sacred of constitutional rights through no fault of their own.17

¶ 93. Act 23 is facially unconstitutional and void. This court cannot rewrite Act 23 to make it constitutional. That task is for the legislature.

¶ 94. Accordingly, I dissent.

I

¶ 95. The opinions in the instant case and NAACP are inconsistent. If Act 23 imposes a de facto poll tax in NAACP, does it not impose a de facto poll tax in the instant case? The majority opinion and Justice Crooks' dissent in NAACP recognize that Act 23 in effect creates, in whole or in part, facially unconstitutional restrictions on the right to vote.18 The holding of NAACP is precedential and governs the instant case.

¶ 96. The NAACP majority opinion follows the lead of the United States Supreme Court in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), *401which finally struck down poll tax laws that were created to burden African-American voters.19

¶ 97. In Harper, the Court struck down a $1.50 poll tax on the ground that "payment of any fee" to a Virginia governmental entity could not be required as a precondition of voting. Although the Harper Court discussed the uneven impact such a fee may have on those with limited financial resources, the Court struck down the fee for all voters. The Harper Court declared that payment of a fee to vote is invidious discrimination and has no relation to voter qualifications:

[W]e must remember that the interest of the State, when it comes to voting, is limited to the power to fix qualifications. Wealth, like race, creed, or color, is not germane to one's ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process. ... To introduce wealth or payment of a fee as a measure of a voter's qualifications is to introduce a capricious or irrelevant factor. The degree of the discrimination is irrelevant.... [T]he requirement of fee paying causes an 'invidious' discrimination. . . .

For to repeat, wealth or fee paying has, in our view, no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned.20

¶ 98. The NAACP majority opinion asserts that "to constitutionally administer Act 23, the [Department of Motor Vehicles] may not require documents in order to issue a [Department of Transportation] photo iden*402tification card for voting that require payment of a fee to any government agency." NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶ 7 n.5.

¶ 99. Despite apparently invalidating some fees and costs for obtaining Act 23 photo IDs, the NAACP majority opinion does not resolve the de facto poll tax issue for other fees and costs.

¶ 100. For example:

• An individual may need to obtain a court order in the case of a name change, gender change, adoption, or divorce, which will require additional filing and court costs.21

• An individual may need to provide a marriage certificate or certified copy of a judgment of divorce,22 which will require court costs, filing fees, and other costs associated with a court order.

• An individual must provide citizenship documentation to obtain Act 23 photo ID,23 such as a passport, a certificate of United States citizenship, a certificate of naturalization, etc., each of which have associated costs imposed by the federal government. The fee for applying is $165 for a passport for first-time adult applicants,24 and $600 for a certificate of naturalization.25

*403¶ 101. Exactly which costs and severe burdens the NAACP majority opinion invalidates is anyone's guess.

¶ 102. The NAACP majority opinion avers that it cures the unconstitutional imposition of these costs and fees through its "saving construction" of Wis. Admin. Code § Trans 102.15(3)(b)-(c).26

¶ 103. The NAACP majority opinion reads this Department of Transportation regulation to provide that if a qualified voter asserts that he or she is obtaining a photo ID for the purposes of voting, the administrator shall exercise his or her discretion in deciding whether to issue a DOT photo identification card without the documents referenced in § Trans 102.15(3)(a) "in a constitutionally sufficient manner." NAACP majority op., ¶ 71. The NAACP majority opinion leaves the administrator and the public to guess what a "constitutionally sufficient manner" is.

*404¶ 104. The NAACP majority opinion regarding Department of Transportation regulations is not, however, a cure for the constitutional defect.

¶ 105. First, the NAACP majority opinion provides no process for an individual to demonstrate that he or she is "constitutionally 'unable'" to obtain the necessary documentation required by Wis. Admin. Code § Trans 102.15(3)(a).27 What procedures must be followed by the Department of Transportation administrator and his or her designees when reviewing a petition or request? What is the timeline for petitioning the Department of Transportation or the Department of Motor Vehicles and the timeline for the agencies to process the petition or request? What proof may the administrator require? Can a Department of Transportation administrator and his or her designees apply his or her discretion to deny Act 23 photo ID because he or she does not find the petition credible? How may the administrator's ruling be challenged?

¶ 106. The NAACP majority opinion appears to leave discretion in the hands of the Department of Transportation administrator and his or her designees but provides no guidance to the Department of Transportation or to the public about proper procedures and the rights of qualified voters.

¶ 107. Second, the section of administrative regulations that the NAACP majority opinion "construes" to cure Act 23's constitutional defects appears to apply only to documents regarding proof of name and date of birth, not to other documentation required to obtain an Act 23 photo ID. A naturalization certificate required to prove citizenship or a marriage certificate required to prove identity may require payments to a government *405agency; these documents are not covered by the NAACP majority opinion's "saving" regulation.

¶ 108. Third, as Justice Crooks' dissent notes, fees and costs other than fees paid directly to government agencies may be required to obtain an Act 23 photo ID.28 These costs are similarly unaddressed and unresolved and may be invidious discrimination.

¶ 109. Thus, although the NAACP majority opinion appears to deem invalid any fees and costs paid to any government agency necessary for documentation to obtain an Act 23 photo ID, its supposed "saving construction" of the administrative regulations fails to cure the myriad variety of costs that Act 23 imposes on individuals attempting to obtain the photo ID necessary to exercise the right to vote.

¶ 110. The NAACP majority opinion invalidates the unconstitutional imposition of some de facto poll taxes as part of Act 23, but leaves other de facto poll taxes, fees, and costs intact.

¶ 111. Yet the majority opinion in the present case declares that Act 23 is facially constitutional. Neither the majority opinion nor I can explain the inconsistency.

II

¶ 112. The majority opinion erroneously uses the "presumption of constitutionality" standard of review to support its conclusions that Act 23 is constitutional. Majority op., ¶¶ 16-17. This standard is particularly inappropriate in the instant case, because:

*406A. The majority opinion in NAACP has already declared a fee imposed by Act 23 an unconstitutional prerequisite for a qualified voter to exercise the right to vote;

B. The majority opinion in NAACP apparently uses several different standards of review; and

C. The presumption of constitutionality standard does not comport with longstanding state case law in which legislative regulation of voting rights has been challenged.

A

¶ 113. The court has already declared in NAACP that, as a matter of law, the fees imposed by Act 23 for a Department of Transportation photo identification card are in effect a de facto poll tax. The NAACP court has declared that the fees are severe, are so burdensome that they effectively deny qualified persons their right to vote, and are constitutionally impermissible.

¶ 114. The NAACP case is precedential in the instant case. When the court itself has in effect invalidated an integral part of Act 23 as unconstitutional, how can a presumption of constitutionality apply in the instant case? How can the court declare Act 23 constitutional in the instant case?

B

¶ 115. How can two opinions, League of Women Voters and NAACP, mandated the same day, use a different standard of review in gauging the constitutionality of Act 23? The same Act 23 is challenged in both cases as unconstitutional under Article III of the state Constitution. A facial challenge is made in both *407cases.29 Indeed, the plaintiffs in NAACP expressly disclaim that that they are making an as-applied challenge.30 The majority opinion in NAACP concedes that the challenge is a facial challenge.31

¶ 116. In the instant case, the majority opinion employs the "presumption of constitutionality" standard, mucking it up somewhat. See ¶ 61, infra.

¶ 117. In NAACP, it is unclear what standard of review, if any, the majority opinion employs to reach its result. Depending on the section, the majority opinion in NAACP asserts several different standards of review.

¶ 118. In the section labeled "Standard of Review," the NAACP majority opinion asserts that "[i]f we conclude that a voter regulation creates a severe burden on electors' right to vote, we will apply strict scrutiny to the statute, and conclude that it is constitutional only if it is narrowly drawn to satisfy a compelling state interest." NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶ 22. This appears to be some variation on the Anderson/Burdick federal test for Equal Protection Clause and First Amendment facial challenges to statutes that impair the right to vote. See NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶¶ 26-39.

¶ 119. In a strict-scrutiny analysis, the State has the burden to show that the regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end." State v. Baron, 2009 WI 58, ¶ 45, 318 Wis. 2d 60, 769 N.W.2d 34.

¶ 120. Yet in the section titled "Foundational Principles," the NAACP majority opinion asserts the presumption of constitutionality is the proper standard, *408stating that "statutes are presumed to be constitutional." NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶ 24. The NAACP majority opinion further asserts that it is the plaintiffs challenging the statute who "must prove that the statute is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt." Id., ¶ 25.

¶ 121. The majority opinion also asserts that the presumption of constitutionality "may vary depending on the nature of the constitutional claim at issue." NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶ 24 (citing League of Women Voters). An identical statement appears in the majority opinion in the instant case, citing NAACP Majority op., ¶ 16. This statement is an unexplained cipher, with no meaning or guidance for the analysis in either case or in future cases.

¶ 122. In its section titled "Saving construction," the NAACP majority opinion applies yet another standard of review, asserting that Act 23 is not unconstitutional, averring that "we do not initially weigh the burden identified . . . because a saving construction of the administrative rule must be considered first."32 Yet a court typically applies a "saving construction" by first assessing whether the statute is unconstitutional and only then assessing whether a saving construction can be applied.33

*409¶ 123. The NAACP majority opinion usurps the legislative role: "[Although this Court will often

strain to construe legislation so as to save it against constitutional attack, it must not and will not carry this to the point of. . . judicially rewriting it. Otherwise there would he no such thing as an unconstitutional statute." State v. Zarnke, 224 Wis. 2d 116, 139-40, 589 N.W.2d 370 (1999) (quoting United States v. X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. 64, 86 (1994) (Scalia, J., dissenting)) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

¶ 124. Finally, after its various machinations on the standard of review, the NAACP majority opinion claims to apply rational-basis review. NAACP, 2014 WI 98, ¶ 71.

¶ 125. Only by applying multiple contradicting standards of review can the NAACP majority opinion reach its multiple and contradictory holdings: in one breath invalidating fees required for documentation to obtain an Act 23 photo ID as an unconstitutional de facto poll tax and severe burden, and in the next breath asserting that Act 23 is nonetheless constitutional and that "the burdens of time, inconvenience and cost upon electors' right to vote are not severe under our interpretation of § Trans 102.15 . . . ."34

¶ 126. The NAACP majority opinion's shifting standards of review throughout the opinion make it impossible to evaluate how or why the court reaches its decision.

*410¶ 127. The majority opinions in NAACP and in the instant case fail to rely on Wisconsin cases that have over the years interpreted and applied the voting provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution.35

¶ 128. The majority opinions ignore the uniqueness of Wisconsin's constitutional provision on voting rights and Wisconsin's unique jurisprudence protecting the right to vote under its own constitution. The United States Constitution does not protect voting rights in the same way as does the Wisconsin Constitution,36 and the federal challenges to state voter ID legislation are based on the Equal Protection Clause.

¶ 129. The majority opinion in the present case attempts to distinguish the League of Women Voters and NAACP cases to justify its different approaches to the standard of review. See majority op., ¶ 11 n.8.

¶ 130. The majority opinion claims that the two cases are different because the League of Women Voters does not assert that Act 23 is so burdensome that it effectively denies the right to vote. Majority op., ¶ 11, n.8. The majority opinion ventures that, in contrast, in NAACP the burdens on the right to vote are at issue. Majority op., ¶ 44 n.ll.37

*411¶ 131. This distinction is not borne out in the cases. Burdens on the right to vote of constitutionally qualified voters are at issue in both cases.

¶ 132. The League of Women Voters complains that Act 23 adopts and adds qualifications for voting that are not in the Wisconsin Constitution, namely requiring production of a specified photo ID, and thus on its face Act 23 impairs or destroys the voting right of persons constitutionally qualified to vote and creates an impermissible burden on the right to vote.38 Act 23 destroys or burdens the right to vote by excluding from voting any registered, qualified voter who fails to display the mandated form of photo ID.

¶ 133. In contrast, the NAACP asserts that Act 23 imposes burdens of time, inconvenience, and costs on the constitutionally qualified voter to obtain an Act 23 photo ID.39

¶ 134. In both the instant case and NAACP, the challenges are plainly facial challenges asserting a *412burden on Wisconsin citizens who are qualified to vote under the Wisconsin Constitution.40 The precise nature of the burden complained of in each case is different, but in both cases the plaintiffs urge that Act 23 imposes a burden on qualified voters impairing or depriving them of their Wisconsin constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.

¶ 135. If a more stringent standard of review than the "presumption of constitutionality" applies in NAACP, it must, in my opinion, also apply in the instant case.

¶ 136. Neither the majority opinion in the instant case, nor the concurrence in the instant case, nor the majority opinion in NAACP advances satisfactory reasons for applying different standards in the two cases. I *413conclude that this court must apply an identical standard of review in both cases and that the standard of review is not the "presumption of constitutionality" standard.

C

¶ 137. Finally, I conclude that the "presumption of constitutionality" standard of review does not apply because our case law in voting rights cases contravenes this standard. No Wisconsin court has ever applied this presumption to legislative regulations on voting. None of the cases cited by the majority opinion supporting this standard of review relates to the fundamental right to vote, except for NAACP, whose standard of review is, to be charitable, confusing.41

¶ 138. Our cases addressing voting rights often do not state a standard of review as such (as was judicial practice at the time the cases were decided), and they predate the federal adoption of strict scrutiny as a judicial standard for reviewing constitutional claims under the federal Constitution.42

¶ 139. Nevertheless, key principles can be drawn from our jurisprudence to guide our review of laws governing the right to vote. The essence of the cases is *414that courts must apply the highest levels of scrutiny to laws regulating the right to vote.43

¶ 140. Because of the fundamental nature of the right to vote, the court has recognized that the right to vote is unlike other rights guaranteed by the Wisconsin Constitution and is specially protected from legislative interference:

Thus is given the right to vote a dignity not less than any other of many fundamental rights. So it has been rightly said by judicial writers: "It is a right which the law protects and enforces as jealously as it does property in chattels or lands. ... The law maintains and vindicates" it "as vigorously as it does any right of any kind which men may have or enjoy." State v. Staten, 46 Tenn. 233, 241 [(1869)]. It is commonly referred to as a sacred right of the highest character and then again, at times, as a mere privilege, a something of such inferior nature that it may be made "the foot-ball of party politics." We subscribe to the former view, placing the *415right of suffrage upon the high plane of removal from the field of mere legislative material impairment.

State ex rel. McGrael v. Phelps, 144 Wis. 1, 15, 128 N.W. 1041, 1046 (1910) (emphasis added).

¶ 141. One key principle in the case law is that the legislature cannot impose a restriction on voting that constitutes an additional "qualification" on the right to vote. Only the Wisconsin Constitution can impose additional qualifications on the right to vote.

¶ 142. The case law has drawn a line between those laws that create an "additional qualification" on the right to vote, thereby impairing an otherwise qualified voter from casting a vote, and those that merely verify a voter's existing constitutional qualifications without restricting his or her existing rights.

¶ 143. This distinction between impermissibly adding qualifications and verifying existing qualifications appears, for example, in two early cases, also cited by the majority opinion,44 State ex rel. Knowlton v. Williams, 5 Wis. 308 (1856), and State ex rel. Cothren v. Lean, 9 Wis. 254 [*279] (1859).

¶ 144. In Knowlton, an elector challenged a 30-day residency requirement that restricted the right to vote to those individuals who had resided in the district for 30 days prior to election. The court in Knowlton voided the residency requirement as an additional qualification on the right to vote beyond what the constitution required:

We have no doubt that the qualifications of the voters as fixed by the act are, in respect to residence in the state, quite different from those prescribed in the constitution. The latter instrument is explicit; it pro*416vides in express terms that a person who possesses the other qualifications mentioned, and who has resided in the state one year next preceding any election, shall be deemed a qualified elector at such election.

The constitution provides, that if a person possesses certain qualifications, and has resided in the state one year next preceding any election, he shall be deemed a qualified elector at such election; while the act of the legislature in question provides, in effect, that this shall not be sufficient, but that he shall, in addition, have resided for thirty days previous to the time when the election is holden in the town where he offers his vote.

We have no doubt that the legislature have the power to provide that a person who has a right to vote under the constitution shall be allowed to exercise this right only in the town where he resides, because this would be only to prescribe the place where a right which he possessed under the constitution shall be exercised, and fixes upon the most convenient place for its exercise. Such a provision does not add to the qualifications which the constitution requires; but an act of the legislature which deprives a person of the right to vote, although he has every qualification which the constitution makes necessary, cannot be sustained,45

¶ 145. Thus, the law fixing the location where an elector can vote regulated merely how, where, and when to vote, but by adding that the elector had to reside in the district for the previous 30 days, the law in question restricted the rights of those voters who would otherwise be qualified under the Wisconsin Constitution to vote.

¶ 146. The prohibited law in Knowlton must be compared with the law upheld in Cothren. In Cothren, *417an elector challenged a law that allowed elections officials to "challenge for cause" a voter's qualifications. An election official could challenge the voter's qualifications for cause at the polls; if the voter refused to answer the election official's questions, the vote would not be counted.46

¶ 147. The court in Cothren approved of the "challenge for cause" requirement as mere proof that the qualified voter indeed possessed the constitutional qualifications to vote, distinguishing Knowlton