voter suppression
Keep Our Republic launches in Wisconsin to defend democracy, protect the vote
Keep Our Republic, a bipartisan group founded in 2020 to shore up confidence in U.S. elections, is announcing the launch of its Wisconsin chapter on Monday. The group’s creed, according to its mission statement, is: “Let all eligible voters vote. Let all votes be counted. Let the vote count stand.” Chapters in Pennsylvania and Michigan […]
A top GOP lawyer wants to crack down on the college vote. States already are.
A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states. But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising […]
Community leaders push early voting in Milwaukee
Community activists, elected officials and Milwaukee residents gathered at the city’s Midtown Center Wednesday to encourage people to vote early. Early voting for the 2023 spring primary opened on Feb. 7 and will run until Feb. 18 in Milwaukee. (Check the MyVote.com website for information on voting hours in each municipality, absentee voting, and where […]
On MLK Day, a choice between fascism and democracy
The MLK holiday is a time for service and hopefully deep reflection. People volunteer, give their time, donate money etc, but what does this holiday mean in this moment, when democracy continues to be fragile and not accessible to everyone? Last week I wrote an Op-Ed for the Recombobulation Area about the voter suppression we […]
What will Wisconsin Republicans do after Spindell spilled the beans on suppressing Black votes?
Thanks to the excellent reporting of Bruce Murphy in Urban Milwaukee, we now know that fake Trump elector and Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell crowed about Republicans’ successful efforts to suppress the Black vote in Milwaukee in the November 2022 elections. The quotes Murphy pulls out of Spindell’s congratulatory message to Republicans, as party chair […]
Seeking to bring peace, ensure justice, clergy prepare to stand watch at the polls
Along with elections workers and poll watchers, Wisconsin voters may encounter faith leaders when they go to the polls on Tuesday. Clergy of several faiths are volunteering to serve as poll chaplains on Election Day. They will be there, organizers say, to provide support and comfort for voters and poll workers. And in a time […]
Concerns grow that voter intimidation could disrupt midterm elections
PHOENIX — The two outdoor ballot drop boxes in Maricopa County are both unassuming—secure metal boxes, about the size of blue mailboxes, located just outside county buildings. But in recent weeks, they’ve at times been monitored by volunteers with far-right organizations, prompted by former President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread fraud and misinformation about drop […]
Election officials risk criminal charges under 31 new GOP-imposed penalties
Second in a two-part series. See part one here. Since the 2020 election, Iowa has enacted one new felony and two new misdemeanor offenses targeting election officials. The state’s omnibus election law, passed in 2021, criminalizes election officials who fail to perform their duties, don’t adequately maintain voter lists, or interfere with other people performing […]
GOP still riling up its base with the Big Lie
Indifferent to the revelations of the Jan. 6 hearings, the GOP in Wisconsin is riling up its base with the Big Lie even as those hearings are under way. This week, the Republican National Committee and the Wisconsin Republic Party launched a nine-city “election integrity” tour. That would be a laughable joke if it weren’t […]
Election officials make their voices heard as battleground states debate voting laws
When Georgia legislators pushed through a restrictive voting bill during the 2021 session, Bartow County election supervisor Joseph Kirk said he felt frustrated and sidelined. Lawmakers largely didn’t take election officials’ views into account, he said, and what resulted was a law that included a number of provisions that he said election officials believe are […]
Florida gave voting rights to people with felony convictions. Now some face charges for voting.
Florida authorities arrested a Black man while he was staying in a homeless shelter and charged him with voting illegally in a case tied to Republicans’ drive to root out election fraud. But Kelvin Bolton’s arrest raises questions about the rollout of Amendment 4, passed by Florida voters in 2018 to restore voting rights to […]
A moment of clarity on voting rights
During Thursday’s Milwaukee Press Club panel discussion about the latest Marquette University Law School poll, Charles Franklin, the poll’s director and one of the most respected pollsters in the country, took a rare break from his usual careful neutrality to answer a question about his childhood in the segregated south in the 1950s and 60s. […]