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Coronavirus didn’t start the student debt crisis, it’s just making it worse
The student debt crisis isn’t new. The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) found that 64% of Wisconsin’s 2018 graduates had student debt, averaging $31,705 of debt per person. Compared to the rest of the country, Wisconsin has the seventh most graduates with debt and the 13th highest average amount of debt. The crisis […]
Tiffany, Zunker virtually debate in final days before congressional special election
In a virtual debate held Monday evening, the two candidates in a special election for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District started off by answering a question related to the reason the debate was held online — coronavirus. When asked what should be prioritized in future federal relief packages, the Republican candidate, state Sen. Tom Tiffany, said […]
Decision Day for high school seniors comes with added stress
Rowan Cody has a decision to make. It’s a decision high school seniors have made before her and others are making alongside her — where to attend college. But this year, Cody and the rest of the class of 2020 are making this decision while the economy is in shambles, the coronavirus pandemic continues to […]
Frustrating, stressful, surreal: graduating students face a shaky future
In what feels like a stroke of cosmically bad luck, thousands of college students virtually graduating across Wisconsin in the coming weeks will be entering an economy and a job market that has been flipped upside down by the coronavirus pandemic. Just as the classes of 2008 and 2009 graduated into the Great Recession, the […]
Reopen Wisconsin rally brings hundreds who reject social distancing
Around 1,500 people gathered — against the advice of public health officials — around the Wisconsin State Capitol Friday to protest Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer-at-Home order. The order remains in effect until May 26 to slow the spread of COVID-19, which as of Friday afternoon had infected at least 5,356 Wisconsinites and killed 262, according […]
What’s going on with Reopen Wisconsin?
As connections to large right-wing organizations are uncovered in the growing movement to reopen the economies of states around the country, organizers of the rally planned in Wisconsin continue to say they’ve turned down any outside influence. One of the organizers, Madison Elmer, posted in the private Facebook group associated with the rally, set for […]
Milwaukee Common Council moves toward mail-in voting for 2020
Weeks after thousands of Milwaukee residents went to the polls to vote in the April 7 election during the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s newly sworn in common council passed a resolution to move the city to entirely mail-in voting. The new program, called SafeVote and introduced by Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic, would send an application for […]
Wisconsin’s missing absentee ballots
Maria Nelson, a 35-year-old Appleton resident, was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in February 2019. A little more than a year later, on March 31, she requested an absentee ballot to vote in Wisconsin’s spring election. She thought she was following the rules, believing she had until April 13 to get her ballot in […]
Rally to reopen Wisconsin set as Wisconsinites face an unknown future
A #ReopenWisconsin Facebook group displaying anti-government memes, a few MAGA hats and joined by thousands of participants, including Milwaukee County Supervisor Dan Sebring, is planning a rally in Madison April 24 to protest Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order. The event, “Wisconsin Freedom Rally #ReopenWisconsin,” has nearly 800 people saying they’re going and 3,600 saying they’re […]
Days after spring election, another hurdle: how do candidates gather nomination signatures?
Before the ink has completely dried on Wisconsin’s 2020 spring election, the state is already moving ahead to the fall primary and general elections. Starting April 15, candidates for elected office can begin circulating nomination papers and collecting signatures — a process made much more complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally, the process of collecting […]
Zoombombing, phishing and the threats of our increasingly online world
With kids home from school, many people working from home and many essential services beginning to function remotely, the world is moving more online than it ever was before. With that move come more vulnerabilities. Just last week, the Milwaukee Elections Commission fell victim to a practice known as “Zoombombing,” which involves people logging into […]
With no guidance from WEC, 1,850 municipalities left to make 1,850 different ballot decisions
“Each municipality must determine whether the ballot was postmarked timely.” That is the guidance provided by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to local election clerks around Wisconsin for how to handle absentee ballots with postmarks that are unclear or that have no postmark at all. This is important because of a U.S. Supreme Court order […]