Battle for the Ballot

COMMENTARY
President Donald Trump shrugging and making a face looking skeptical disbelieving

The Wisconsin GOP’s Trump problem

BY: - October 16, 2020

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 […]

US Supreme Court building

Wisconsin election case heads to U.S. Supreme Court

BY: - October 13, 2020

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 […]

COMMENTARY
An absentee ballots for the April 7 election. (Photo by Henry Redman)

Counting absentee ballots early is a good idea

BY: - October 13, 2020

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 […]

President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the South Lawn of the White House Aug. 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Trump’s rhetoric on election integrity unfolds in courtrooms, tweets

BY: - October 9, 2020

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, […]

In this file photo Michelle Orengo-McFarlane looks for her name on a voter registration list in San Francisco, California. Some voters don't discover they've been purged from the voter rolls until they go to vote. (Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

List maintenance or voter suppression: How the practice of maintaining voter lists became polarized

BY: - October 8, 2020

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 […]

Shelby v Holder rally

Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act opened floodgates for new restrictions

BY: - October 7, 2020

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 […]

computer screen with ones and zeros, spelling out word "election"

Voting machine hacks

BY: - October 6, 2020

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 […]

Scott Moore is pictured on Friday, Sept. 25, 2020 outside the Robert J. Dole Federal Courthouse in Kansas City, Kan. Moore was the lead plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit filed against former Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach over the use of the Crosscheck program.(Photo by Nick Krug for Kansas Reflector)

Voter fraud myth persists despite constant failure to prove claims

BY: - October 6, 2020

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. […]

Voters wait in line at Washington High School (Photo by Isiah Holmes)

‘I just don’t trust the system any more’: Voters on edge as election nears

BY: and - October 5, 2020

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 […]