Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
No.
We found no evidence that liberal Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor has supported allowing noncitizens to vote.
Taylor and conservative state Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar are running in the April 7 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
A Lazar ad claimed Taylor is “pushing for noncitizen voting.”
Lazar’s campaign cited:
Taylor’s opposition, while a Democratic state lawmaker, to the Republican-backed 2011 state law requiring identification to vote.
Her introduction of a 2017 bill, which did not become law. It would have provided driver’s licenses to unauthorized residents, but the licenses would have been labeled: “Not valid for voting purposes.”
Taylor’s opinion, in a 2024 appeals court ruling, which said absentee ballots count even if voters’ witnesses fail to give election clerks their full address. Citizenship is required to vote in Wisconsin, but Wisconsin election officials generally do not verify citizenship when a person registers.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
We’ve written more extensively about this topic in a different article. You can read more about it here.
Sources
- Maria Lazar campaign: The Warning
- Maria Lazar campaign: Email
- Urban Milwaukee: Taylor, Stakeholders Call on GOP to Fund Voter ID Information Campaign
- Wisconsin State Legislature: 2017 Assembly Bill 727
- PBS Wisconsin: Wisconsin appeals court upholds ruling on witness addresses for absentee ballots
- Wisconsin Watch: Do Wisconsin election officials verify citizenship when a person registers to vote?
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
