With online registration, LeMahieu said special registration deputies — and their role as a steward of registration paperwork — no longer will be needed. Instead, he said, anyone could help a voter register online using tablets or other mobile devices.

“We’re making sure everybody can do registration drives,” LeMahieu said. “All I need is my smartphone or my iPad.”

But other groups that oppose the LeMahieu bill — such as Common Cause in Wisconsin, a nonpartisan government accountability group — note that it requires voters to have an ID that meets the state voter ID requirement when they register online. Such voters would provide their ID number when they register.

“Those individuals less likely to have those forms of ID (minorities, the elderly, low-income persons, and students) — the very people most likely to be served by special registration deputies — will be left out in the cold,” the group said in a statement.

LeMahieu said voters who lack the proper ID could be given paper registration forms by those conducting registration drives. Those voters could take the form home and submit it when they have acquired the proper ID, he said. Or they could register at the polls on Election Day, by which time they’ll need an ID to vote anyway.

The online registration bill had been stalled in the Legislature since the fall, then lurched back to life earlier this month when LeMahieu proposed changes. Democratic lawmakers supported the earlier version of the bill but deserted in October after concerns arose, including with its elimination of special registration deputies.

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