This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
I know all of this looks scary but there’s one thing everyone should remember while we’re watching all of these plots unfold to undermine our democracy: These people are idiots! They’ve proven it time and time again with all of their blundering in their past attempts to take over this country.
I’m not saying they can’t succeed (don’t get me wrong). I’m just trying to point out the fact that things could be much worse. Imagine if all of these would be usurpers had IQs above room temperature?
The National Socialists in Germany rose to power in 1932 partly on economic messaging. US cable news is allowing similar messaging to again dominate in the end of the mid-term cycle. Ron DeSantis, for example, is not called out of his failure to acknowledge the causes of climate disruption. Kevin McCarthy is so malleable it is hard to know what he stands or slithers for. But “Bidenflation”, “Woke Communist Agenda” and all other assorted bullshit. What is particularly annoying is that economists understand that the constellation of challenges arrayed against economic growth are rare, but not bizarre. Pandemics wane, wars are finite and supply chains ultimately can be reconstituted. Instead, these challenges are framed as problems without context. Why would anyone want to put such incompetents in charge of economic policy? Liz “Austerity 2.0” Truss did a 65-billion-pound boo-boo just days into her PMship. Imagine the US economy governed by Kevin McCarthy’s belief system.
Yes, the WI legislature has given itself all the power in the State and it’s run by morons who think they rule the world. Gerrymandering will do that.
Hell, this is the same group that removed the Walker powers from Evers before he was even inaugurated. Voted themselves in charge of everything.
A former state Supreme Court justice, Gableman was special counsel for the Wisconsin Assembly, tasked with investigating the 2020 election. While spending more than $1 million in taxpayer money, he lent oxygen to election-fraud theories — including Kaardal’s accusations about nursing home irregularities — but couldn’t prove any. Attempts to reach Gableman for comment for this story were unsuccessful.
So has any reporter asked an elected official, or former elected official if they thought that the election that they ran in and won was full of fraud?
“I want it back to in-person, one day,” said Bruce L. Boll, a volunteer with We the People Waukesha, one of numerous groups supporting tighter controls. “Voting should not be a whim. It should be something you plan for and you do. Like your wedding day.”
So Bruce you only want one day voting , and in person voting, how does excluding members of the military who claim WI as their state of residency jive with supporting the military? How are you going to make sure that there are enough polling places, poll workers to staff those polling places, and are distributed equally per population through out the state? Wait times Bruce, what’s an excessive wait time in your opinion? And why Bruce, why do you want to disenfranchise workers who work 12 hour shifts?
First thing to do is to adequately state the GOP intention…for all to see:
They wish to minimize the voting power of Democrats. THAT’s a revolving-door news story…and any person originating (or setting foot) in the state is fully aware of the strategy and the stakes.
Best as I can tell, we’re now in a national analog to the post-Reconstruction South.
That’s not a determinative observation, but one of what we’re up against.
For full disclosure, I grew up in Milwaukee, was an undergraduate at Madison and even worked for the State Senate. Two bothers and a sister still live in the state along with other relatives. In short I know Wisconsin fairly well.
Two dumb things elected Trump in 2016, White people voting for Trump and Black people not voting. This was especially true in Trump winning Wisconsin in 2016. The reason Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 is that the second dumb thing did not happen to the same extent as in 2016.
The bigger problem is that people in Wisconsin do not like to admit they were wrong by changing their votes. It is why after totally screwing up Republican strongholds with COVID by holding big rallies, Trump was really unpopular in some of those Republican strongholds. However, on election day they voted for him anyway because he was the Republican. Hence elections in Wisconsin will always be close and the deciding issue will be turnout among Democrats and especially in the southeastern part of the state.
With the above said, after reading this very long and detailed account of Republican attempts at voter suppression in Wisconsin, I am not that concerned.
The problem is people in Wisconsin do not change their votes. Rather, the issue is will they vote and I do not really think, from what I am reading, this will affect that very much at all. In fact, these voter suppression attempts may actually motivate people who voted in 2020 but not 2016 to vote in 2022.
One last thing about Wisconsin. When I was a student at UW Madison where the basketball team was really bad, we use to say it was because as you went North and West of Milwaukee there were not enough Black people to have a decent basketball team. Or to put another way, to the extent these laws hurt people north or west of Milwaukee, it will hurt Republicans as much as Democrats. Or to put still another way, it is much easier for people with disabilities to get around in urban than rural areas.
A cnn poll has the Arizona senate race between Mark Kelly (D) and Blake Masters (gun toting Goober) at 51% to 45% for Kelly and cnn says Arizona is trending to the GOP… The races for Governor and Secretary of State here are close and go either way depending on the polling source. But that does not mean we here in AZ are rabid Goobers. Some are but most folks are way more sane than that. Over the past couple decades Arizona has been trending to the democrat side. I hope that continues.
More recently, in Waukesha County, a judge sided with the Republican Party in a ruling that barred local clerks from fixing even minor errors or omissions — such as a missing ZIP code — on absentee ballot envelopes.
Not mentioned in the article, the “curing” of the envelope wasn’t something brand new for 2020. That, along with all of the other aspects of requesting and submitting absentee ballots (except the drop boxes), including longer early voting, were all in place in 2016 when T**** won Wisconsin.
Add to this the newly regerrymandered voting for State legislators and the GQP is that much closer to their desired veto-proof super majority and the ability to overrule the governor, should Evers succeed now (or any Democrat in the future). They are one state senator away and will most likely be successful. The legislature only requires five and with the changes at least three are likely to flip.
And yes, I know it’s Fox, but it’s the local station, based out of Milwaukee, and it’s a better written, more detailed story than the others I found.
I want to know how it is that the only mistakes made on addresses or other technicalities are only perpetrated by Dems and big cities…and not the most illiterate and un-civic minded RW Lark Scooter trailer park denizens.
I have to think all these rules pinpointing some error with a signature match or address issue are not SOLELY affecting D voters.