In the November 2012 election, observer Wesley Morrissette watched for the Obama campaign as people voted at Rufus King Middle School in Milwaukee. Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday signed a bill allowing election observers to be closer to voters and poll workers. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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Madison — Election observers could stand a few feet from voters and poll workers, under one of a series of election bills Gov. Scott Walker signed in private Wednesday.

The law would allow observers to stand 3 to 8 feet from the table where voters announce their names and addresses and are issued voter numbers, or from the table where people register to vote. Walker's office said that the law will safeguard the fairness of elections by ensuring observers can see how they are being conducted.

In recent debate in the Senate, Democrats argued the bill could lead to longer lines at polling places and voter harassment, with Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) saying observers would be "breathing down the necks of poll workers." GOP lawmakers approved the measure in votes that largely broke along party lines.

Another measure signed by Walker requires that, when practical, poll workers of opposite political parties perform certain duties together.

Under existing law, clerks are to choose poll workers from lists submitted by the major political parties, putting similar numbers from each party at each polling location. The legislation signed Wednesday specifies that when two or more poll workers must perform a task, they should be of opposite parties.

The measure passed the Legislature on party-line votes with Republicans backing it and Democrats in opposition.

Walker also signed a new requirement that elections officials must record the type of document submitted by voters to prove residency, along with the name of the issuing entity and part of any number on the document used by the issuer to identify the voter. That measure also passed both houses of the Legislature along largely partisan lines.

A less contentious measure passed by lawmakers on voice votes and signed by Walker would ease requirements on elections officials to count frivolous write-in votes. The legislation would remove the need to count every write-in vote and require elections to normally only count write-in votes for candidates whose names aren't listed on the ballot but who did file registration statements for the election.

In cases where a candidate on the ballot dies or withdraws from the race before an election, officials would still be required to count all write-in votes, regardless of whether the write-in candidate registered for the election.

Last week, Walker signed a number of other elections measures, including new limits on absentee voting and a relaxed restrictions on when lobbyists can make campaign donations to state officials.

In the early-voting measure, Walker used his partial veto powers — the most powerful in the nation — to nix language restricting early voting hours in Milwaukee and other cities to 45 hours a week while leaving in place a provision to prohibit early voting on weekends.

Democrats and Milwaukee officials decry those voting limits as part of a nationwide effort by the GOP to make it harder for minorities, veterans, the elderly and students to vote, saying it amounts to "fixing elections" rather than problems. Republicans say the bill was needed to ensure equity in the times rural and urban voters can cast absentee ballots.