Author: Reporter

A panel of voting experts and political party appointees will help the Wisconsin Election Commission rework its rules for poll watchers ahead of the 2024 presidential race. Poll watchers, called election observers in Wisconsin, have complained that existing rules on how they can monitor voting sites are unclear and applied inconsistently across the state. Wisconsin has one of the most decentralized election systems in the nation, with more than 1,800 municipal clerks who count votes. The new advisory committee will include voting rights advocates, poll watchers, municipal clerks and political party representatives. The panel will offer perspectives on how...

Ronna McDaniel has become the longest serving leader of the Republican National Committee since the Civil War. But now, she must confront a modern-day civil war within the GOP. Frustrated Republicans from state capitals to Capitol Hill to the luxury Southern California hotel where RNC members gathered this week are at odds over how to reverse six years of election disappointments. And while there are many strong feelings, there is no consensus even among the fighting factions about the people, policies or political tactics they should embrace. On one side: a growing number of elected officials eager to move...

Governor Tony Evers wants to hand the Milwaukee Brewers nearly $300 million from Wisconsin’s budget surplus to enact repairs and renovations at American Family Field. The governor’s office announced recently that his executive budget will include $290 million from the surplus for stadium repairs. In exchange for the money, the Brewers have agreed to extend their lease at the stadium by 13 years through 2043, the administration and the team said. “As governor, and also someone who happens to be a lifelong Brewers fan, I’m so excited about the historic opportunity we have today to keep Major League Baseball...

Recent revelations about Republican election strategies targeting minority communities in Wisconsin’s biggest city came as no surprise to many Black voters. A Wisconsin election commissioner bragged about low turnout in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods during last year’s elections. Weeks later, an audio recording surfaced that showed then-President Donald Trump’s Wisconsin campaign team laughing behind closed doors about efforts to reach Black voters in 2020. Many people who voted this past week in the state’s primary election said they had long felt targeted by Republicans. The difference now is the public display of strategies that at best ignore the...

Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states. Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024. Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against...

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers made a plea for bipartisanship with the unveiling of a nearly $104 billion state budget on February 15 that includes a new paid family leave program for most public and private-sector workers, tax cuts for the middle class, a plan to keep the Milwaukee Brewers in their stadium until at least 2043, and higher spending for public schools. “Let’s not allow our work together to be hindered by partisanship,” Governor Evers said in his speech to the GOP-controlled Legislature. “Let’s dispose of the notion that the priorities in this budget are somehow extreme or far-fetched....