David W. Opitz

David W. Opitz is a former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and the Wisconsin State Senate.

Biography

Opitz was born on December 15, 1945 in Port Washington, Wisconsin.[1] He graduated from Carroll University and became a biologist. From 1971 to 1973, he served as Director of Environmental Health of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin.[2] In 2019 Opitz was one of three plaintiffs in a suit filed in Ozaukee County District court that moved to disenfranchise 234,000 voters from mostly Democratic voting districts in Wisconsin. Local Judge Paul V. Malloy ordered that state law compelled him to order they be stricken from the voter rolls.[3][4] Malloy refused to grant standing to the League of Women Voters, to intervene in the case.[5] The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which Malloy also denied standing, also filed suit in federal court to halt the contested purging.[5] Wisconsin's Attorney General Josh Kaul also file a notice of appeal to halt the purging, acting on behalf of the state's Elections Commission and requesting to stay of Malloy's order.[6] The issue was brought before the court by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).[5] The Institute is a right-wing organization mostly supported by the Bradley Foundation, which funds such political causes.[5] The lawsuit demanded that the Wisconsin Election Commission respond to a "Movers Report," generated from voter data analysis produced by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national, non-partisan partnership funded in 2012 by the Pew Charitable Trusts. ERIC shares voter registration information to improve the accuracy of voter rolls.[7][8] The report tagged voters who may have moved to an address that had not yet been updated on their voter registration forms. Despite marginal evidence for removal of that extraordinary number of qualified voters, Wisconsin may be forced to comply with Malloy's order.[9] On January 2, 2010, WILL said it asked the circuit court to hold the Elections Commission in contempt, fining it up to $12,000 daily, until it carries Malloy's December 17, 2019 order to purge from the voting rolls hundreds of thousands of registered voters who possibly have moved to a different address. The case being litigated in a state appeals court, but it was thought that the conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court would be likely to hear it.[10] Ozaukee County is heavily Republican, having voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only once after 1936 when it voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964.[11] The purge was felt to be targeting voters living in the cities of Madison, and Milwaukee, and college towns, which all favor Democratic candidates.[5] Two of the three plaintiffs in the case heard by Malloy were significant contributors to state Republican party candidates' campaigns, including Opitz.[5]

Political career

Opitz was elected to the Assembly in 1972. In April 1979, Opitz won a special election to the state Senate from the 20th District and was reelected in 1980, remaining a member until 1984. He is a Republican.[1]

References
  1. "Opitz, David W. 1945". Wisconsin Historical Society. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  2. Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, ed. (1979). The State of Wisconsin 1979-1980 Blue Book. Madison: Wisconsin Department of Administration. p. 60. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  3. Conservative legal group alleges Elections Commission in contempt of court, Wisconsin State Journal, Riley Vetterkind, January 2, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2010.
  4. Wisconsin judge orders removal of 234,000 voters from state registry, FOX6Now, Amy Dupont, December 13, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  5. Matthew Rothschild: Elections Commission is right to hold off on voter purge, The Cap Times, Matthew Rothschild, December 19, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  6. Effort to stop removal of 234K voter registrations heads to federal court, while attorney general tries to stall purge in state court, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bruce Vielmetti and Molly Beck, December 17, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  7. Archived Project, Pew Charitable Trust. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  8. Another Use for A.I.: Finding Millions of Unregistered Voters, New York Times, Steve Lohr, November 5, 2018. Retrieved January 3. 2020.
  9. How a Conservative Group Persuaded a Judge to Purge Wisconsin’s Voter Rolls, Slate Magazine, Mark Joseph Stern, December 16, 2019. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  10. Vetterkind, Riley (2020-01-02). "Conservative legal group alleges Elections Commission in contempt of court". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
  11. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
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