Battle for the Ballot
In ‘ominous’ decision for democracy, Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin’s absentee ballot appeal
On Monday evening, just minutes before President Donald Trump held a Rose Garden ceremony to swear in Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court rejected an appeal to extend the deadline for counting mail-in ballots in Wisconsin. Ballots that are mailed before Election Day but arrive after Nov. 3 will not count, under the […]
AG Kaul: Voter intimidation is illegal, breaking that law risks jail time
Anyone planning on scaring voters at the polls had better be ready to go to jail, said Attorney General Josh Kaul. Voter intimidation is against the law in Wisconsin. And Kaul wants to make certain voters know it — and know what to do if they witness or experience any kind of intimidation at the […]
Voters and election officials push forward in the face of politics, lawsuits and infections
Since April the COVID-19 pandemic and Wisconsin’s 2020 election cycle have been on a collision course. Now, with just over two weeks remaining until Election Day, the crash is happening. According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, 77,448 people have registered to vote since Oct. 1. In that same time period, 37,164 more Wisconsinites tested positive […]
The Wisconsin GOP’s Trump problem
With just over two weeks to go before the 2020 election, Wisconsin is at the center of our nation’s political upheaval. Democrats are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow election officials more time to count an avalanche of absentee ballots. Meanwhile, a COVID-positive President Donald Trump is coming to Janesville on Saturday. To […]
Wisconsin election case heads to U.S. Supreme Court
The group of organizations suing to loosen some Wisconsin election laws to help with accessing the vote during the COVID-19 pandemic applied for the case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The groups had initially won some relief in district court when Judge William Conley extended deadlines around requesting and returning […]
Counting absentee ballots early is a good idea
On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Larson, along with 22 other Wisconsin legislators, sent a letter to the Republican leaders urging them to meet in extraordinary session to pass a law that would allow clerks to start counting absentee ballots before Election Day. This is an eminently good idea. Wisconsin is one of only two swing states […]
Trump’s rhetoric on election integrity unfolds in courtrooms, tweets
See you in court! It is a threat President Donald Trump and his re-election campaign have lobbed — sometimes verbatim — at states across the country this year. Last week, the campaign threatened litigation in Pennsylvania if it wasn’t allowed to observe activity inside satellite election offices — access election lawyers say would be unprecedented, […]
List maintenance or voter suppression: How the practice of maintaining voter lists became polarized
In the last decade, millions of registered voters across the country have been removed from voter rolls. In 2019, Ohio removed more than 460,000 voter registration files from its list. Georgia removed 313,000 people from its rolls in October 2019 alone, and in Michigan, from 2011 to 2018, 1.2 million voters were removed from voter […]
Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act opened floodgates for new restrictions
It hadn’t even been a day since the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled one of the pillars of voting rights in America, and North Carolina lawmakers weren’t wasting any time. Republican legislators had been contemplating a bill that would require photo identification to vote. The bill had plenty of support, but it had spent the past […]
Voting machine hacks
There is no evidence, despite partisan claims to the contrary, that mail-in ballots are rife with voting fraud — but there are parts of the election system that security researchers say are at far greater risk for malicious activity. National elections like the one in November, when Americans will decide whether Donald Trump or Joe […]
Voter fraud myth persists despite constant failure to prove claims
TOPEKA, Kansas — Scott Moore had never heard of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program before election officials in Kansas and Florida exposed his personal information, along with 944 other Kansas voters. The now-defunct Crosscheck was designed to help county clerks clean up registration lists by looking for voters who had moved to neighboring states. […]
‘I just don’t trust the system any more’: Voters on edge as election nears
WASHINGTON — Widespread anxiety and confusion around voting, compounded by the pandemic that has spread to millions of Americans, including President Donald Trump. A vastly underfunded and decentralized electoral system that could take days and possibly weeks to certify results. Attempts to suppress voting, interfere with elections and cast doubt on the integrity of mail-in […]