(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s election managers are going to look into Madison’s 200 missing absentee ballots found in the days and weeks after Election Day.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin saw seven of its 12 metropolitan areas go up 0.1 percentage point in November unemployment over October while one area rose 0.2 percentage point and four remained unchanged.
Vacancies for community corrections staff in Milwaukee County, including probation and parole officers, have nearly tripled since before the pandemic, Wisconsin Department of Corrections data shows.
Some people are worried that fewer officers will make it harder to stabilize their lives after incarceration.
“With fewer agents, it can affect the way individuals can participate in programs while in the community and … in the right path to have sustained and continued success,” said Wilfredo Diaz, who is incarcerated at Stanley Correctional Institution.
Gaps in essential services
“The biggest effect is less service to people who need it the most,” said Peggy West-Schroder, former executive director of FREE, a statewide organization that addresses the needs of women and girls who are incarcerated, formerly incarcerated or otherwise affected by the criminal justice system.
Community corrections staff monitor people on parole, probation and extended supervision – with the goal of enhancing public safety and reducing the likelihood the person will reoffend, according to the Department of Corrections.
Those under supervision are supposed to be monitored for compliance with standard supervision rules concerning their activities and whereabouts. Depending on the type of conviction, such as sex crimes, there are additional supervision rules.
This is consistent with the needs of people who are leaving incarceration. Housing and employment are two of the most common needs among those who are reentering, said Conor Williams, who serves as facilitator of the Milwaukee Reentry Council.
Another major need for people post-incarceration is substance abuse treatment, and community corrections staff can help connect people to such resources as well.
According to a report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, 72% of people on supervision in Wisconsin in 2022 had a “substantial need” for some kind of substance abuse treatment.
Unfilled positions
Around March 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of vacancies among security staff and correctional officers inside prisons began to increase, according to data from the Department of Corrections.
While staffing levels for security positions within prisons have rebounded since the pandemic, the shortage of community-based staff continues.
At the start of the pandemic, the percentage of unfilled community corrections staff serving Milwaukee County was just over 11%, according to Department of Corrections data. By the end of October, it shot up to more than 29% – the highest of any other correctional region in the state, DOC data also shows.
Milwaukee’s adult probation and parole office is located at 1300 N. 7th St., Suite 300. Since the pandemic, vacancies among community corrections staff, which includes probation and parole officers, have nearly tripled. (Devin Blake / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
At the same time, the county has the highest number of individuals who require supervision, noted Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee, who serves on the state’s Assembly Committee on Corrections.
At the end of August, there were just about 13,000 individuals in the county who were under some form of supervision, correctional data also shows.
The Department of Corrections did not respond to several requests for comment about vacancy rates among community corrections staff.
Unmet needs
“I think a lot of people are just falling through the cracks, honestly,” said Juliann Bliefnick, administrative coordinator for FREE, who also is under supervision.
Bliefnick moved to a different part of Wisconsin in 2018 because she was not able to get her needs met in Milwaukee, she said.
The continued rise in unfilled community corrections positions has made the situation worse, Bliefnick said.
“I know people who have been on probation for three years and had seven different agents in those three years,” she said. “You can’t even get anything done when there’s that much turnover.”
West-Schroder and Bliefnick said there is a much higher risk of people being reincarcerated when they do not get the support they need.
Over 30% of people released from prison in 2020 were reincarcerated in Wisconsin within three years of release, according to publicly available correctional data.
Solutions
Lawmakers and advocates are offering their ideas for attracting more supervision staff.
“We must raise the wages and restore labor rights of community corrections staff in order to fill positions and retain workers for longer,” said Madison.
For the latest state budget, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers requested more money to do just this.
In October 2023, base pay for new probation and parole staff went from $21.21 to $22.06 per hour. In June, it increased again, to $22.51 per hour.
So far, the pay changes have not resulted in a decrease in the number of unfilled community corrections positions.
West-Schroder has a different idea.
“We have talked to DOC (Department of Corrections) several times about implementing in-house peer support services, understanding that officers can’t take on huge caseloads while providing these resources,” she said. “Let people who have been in this position before provide support … .”
Denny Tubbs loves his new job as a community health worker, connecting people who have been incarcerated to various resources.
However, it is challenging.
“You always have to do your own research and make sure everything applies for the person and is helpful,” he said.
Tubbs, who works for a local hospital in the Milwaukee area, does not want to waste people’s time. Having left incarceration himself, he knows what it feels like to go from one place to another, trying to put all the post-incarceration pieces together.
A new website, which launched in November, aims to make the process easier by providing clear, accurate information about resources most often needed by people leaving incarceration.
‘Comprehensive and logical’
The website is an extension of the Home to Stay monthly resource fair for people who have left incarceration, or who are “reentering” the community after incarceration.
In the same spirit as the resource fair, a major function of the site is to provide a one-stop shop where people reentering can go for information, support and resources, said Adam Procell, who coordinates the resource fair and has been developing the site.
‘It’s shocking we haven’t had this yet. To me, it’s not rocket science.’
Adam Procell
The site groups resources by type, such as legal, food, housing and clothing, and can be filtered further by county.
“It will be helpful to have reentry resources organized in this comprehensive and logical way,” said Conor Williams, who facilitates the Milwaukee Reentry Council, which coordinates reentry resources on a county level.
Tubbs said that the most common thing people ask him about is employment.
“Anyone that’s getting home from prison, they’ll have a resource directory to go get help wherever they are,” said Shannon Ross, who worked with Procell on the site and is the executive director of The Community, a Milwaukee nonprofit that creates content for and about people who have been incarcerated.
Additional features
The site also includes information about activities, events and success stories.
“The success stories are powerful testimonies from peers and should help to foster hope,” said Williams.
The site will have content for the wider community of people impacted by the criminal justice system as well, including crime survivor resources and systemic reform efforts, said Ross.
Ross and Procell also are developing an app to mirror the website, which would include even more features.
“Let’s say you get out and you have ‘driver’s license’ as one of your needs that’s listed. If you’re walking past the DMV, you’ll get a text that says, ‘look to your left’ or ‘in 15 feet, you’ll see one,’” said Procell.
Ross and Procell collaborate with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections on reentry-related efforts, so another goal is to have departmental staff share the site with people who are incarcerated and reentering.
Less work, more help
After using the site for the first time, Tubbs immediately saw its value.
“The website eliminates just having to go to Google, searching and typing in something and then going to that,” Tubbs said.
“Now, you go to one website that brings to you all that information, everything you need.”
It’s also easy enough for anyone to use – not just reentry professionals but people themselves who need the resources, Tubbs said.
While it took several years to get the site up and running, that doesn’t mean it’s a complicated idea, Procell emphasized.
“It’s shocking we haven’t had this yet,” he said. “To me, it’s not rocket science.”
A man housed in Racine County Jail awaiting trial for attempted homicide is expected to be charged with the beating death of a fellow inmate this week.
A study that surveyed dozens of men from rural Wisconsin found they often have a strong sense of self-worth and think of themselves as hardworking. But some men feel they aren’t being recognized for that hard work or skill set in the traditional workforce.
Two former correctional officers at the Milwaukee County Jail have been charged with excessive use of force against two inmates at the facility last year.
A blast of Arctic air is descending on a large span of the country this weekend, and Wisconsin residents can expect bitterly cold temperatures to linger into the middle of January.
Carter was president from 1977 to 1981, but he was perhaps more famous for the life he led after he left office. He was one of the biggest advocates for peace, democracy and human rights.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
President Joe Biden announced early Friday he will block the sale of U.S. Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel, in one of the last acts of his presidency.
Biden had said that U.S. Steel should remain a domestically owned and operated company, so the order was not a surprise. The White House in December called for “serious scrutiny” of the $14.1 billion deal, which was under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an executive branch body.
“We need major U.S. companies representing the major share of US steelmaking capacity to keep leading the fight on behalf of America’s national interests,” Biden said in a Friday statement. “As a committee of national security and trade experts across the executive branch determined, this acquisition would place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create risk for our national security and our critical supply chains.
“So, that is why I am taking action to block this deal. It is my solemn responsibility as President to ensure that, now and long into the future, America has a strong domestically owned and operated steel industry that can continue to power our national sources of strength at home and abroad; and it is a fulfillment of that responsibility to block foreign ownership of this vital American company. U.S. Steel will remain a proud American company – one that’s American-owned, American-operated, by American union steelworkers – the best in the world,” he said.
The sale, which was valued at $14.9 billion when accounting for assumption of debt, was opposed by the United Steelworkers International union, a powerful labor group that had continually urged Biden, who saw union workers as a key part of his political coalition, to keep U.S. Steel domestically owned. The union renewed that request in a Wednesday social media post.
In a Friday statement, USW President David McCall thanked Biden and said the union members had “no doubt that it’s the right move for our members and our national security.”
“We’re grateful for President Biden’s willingness to take bold action to maintain a strong domestic steel industry and for his lifelong commitment to American workers,” McCall said. “Moving forward, we’re confident that with responsible management, U.S. Steel will continue to support good jobs, healthy communities and robust national and economic security well into the future.”
U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel issued a joint statement that the companies were “dismayed” with the decision and vowed to “take all appropriate action to protect” their legal rights.
The transaction would have boosted the steel industry in the United States, thanks to billions of dollars the Japanese company had planned to put into U.S. facilities.
“Blocking this transaction means denying billions of committed investment to extend the life of U. S. Steel’s aging facilities and putting thousands of good-paying, family-sustaining union jobs at risk,” the joint statement said. “In short, we believe that President Biden has sacrificed the future of American steelworkers for his own political agenda.”
U.S. Steel and Nippon added that they had serious doubts about the process that led to CFIUS’ evaluation, calling it “deeply corrupted by politics” and “pre-determined.”
In a separate blistering statement, U.S. Steel President and CEO David B. Burritt called the decision a “shameful and corrupt” deal with McCall, said it would hurt the company and its workers and vowed to “fight President Biden’s political corruption.”
Biden “gave a political payback to a union boss out of touch with his members while harming our company’s future, our workers, and our national security,” Burritt wrote. “He insulted Japan… and put American competitiveness at risk. The Chinese Communist Party leaders in Beijing are dancing in the streets.”
Biden did not meet with U.S. Steel leaders “to learn the facts,” Burritt continued.
“Our employees and communities deserve better. We needed a president who knows how to get the best deal for America and work hard to make it happen.”
Biden issued the order under the Defense Production Act, which allows the president to intervene in private industrial matters if national security is threatened. In his statement, he argued that retaining a strong steel industry was essential for national security.
Scaffolding on the State Capitol of Wisconsin | Photo by Greg Anderson
Over a quarter of lawmakers will take their seats in the Wisconsin Legislature for the first time in 2025, with six new state Senators and 31 new Assembly members following November elections under new legislative maps. In the Assembly, there are 23 new Democratic lawmakers and eight new Republican lawmakers. All of the new state Senators are Democrats.
The Examiner spoke with four of the new lawmakers about preparing for the start of the legislative session ahead of Inauguration Day on Jan. 6 and what they hope to work on in the new term.
Orientation: A ‘great first step’
Incoming lawmakers participated in an orientation during the second week of December to learn more about the ins and outs of the Legislature and to meet their colleagues.
Rep.-elect Christian Phelps, a Democrat who will represent parts of Eau Claire, joins the Assembly with a background in organizing, having most recently worked for the Wisconsin Public Education Network. He said that his advocacy background gives him some familiarity with the workings of the Legislature — he’s watched floor sessions and attended committee hearings to testify.
Rep.-elect Christian Phelps. (Photo courtesy of Phelps)
“We all probably come in with varying degrees of familiarity with the processes because that’s the nature of democracy,” Phelps said. “Even if you have that kind of background, there’s a lot you don’t know — just kind of the behind the scenes, inner workings.”
Programming for the orientation was organized by the Legislative Council, and the incoming lawmakers said the sessions covered issues such as open records laws, office management skills, technology and human resources information.
Democratic Sen. elect Jodi Habush Sinykin of Whitefish Bay said it was a “terrific itinerary of training,” and “very thoughtfully done.”
The group of new lawmakers spans a broad spectrum of experiences.
Some have backgrounds in local government, including Rep.-elect Tara Johnson, a former La Crosse County board supervisor, Rep.-elect Vinnie Miresse, who has served as a Portage County Board member, Rep.-elect Brent Jacobson, who has served on the Marathon County Board and Rep.-elect Margaret Arney, who has served as an alderperson in Wauwatosa.
A handful come from an education background including Rep.-elect Angelina Cruz, a veteran public school teacher and president of Racine Educators United, Rep.-elect Joe Sheehan, a former Sheboygan Area School District Superintendent and Rep.-elect Angela Stroud, a professor of sociology and social justice at Northland College.
Some have served in the military, including Rep.-elect Benjamin Franklin, who served in the Air Force, Rep.-elect Angelito Tenorio, who served in the Wisconsin Army National Guard, and Rep. -elect Duke Tucker, an Air Force veteran.
The new class of lawmakers also includes small business owners, a volunteer pastor, legal professionals and a mental health provider.
Some of the incoming lawmakers have prior experience serving in the state Legislature. Republican Rep.-elect Rob Kreibich of New Richmond, a former TV anchorman, served previously from 1993 to 2007 and Rep.-elect Dean Kaufert, former mayor of Neenah, previously served in the Assembly from 1991 to 2015. Sen.-elect Dora Drake and Melissa Ratcliff are joining the Senate from the Assembly, filling the seats of two outgoing lawmakers. Rep.-elect Dan Knodl is rejoining the Assembly after serving in the Senate for part of a term.
Rep.-elect Renuka Mayadev, a Democrat from Madison, said the diversity of backgrounds in the new freshman class is exciting because it makes conversations robust. She most recently worked at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health as a program advisor for maternal and child health in the Wisconsin Partnership Program. She’s planning to leave the job to focus on serving in the Assembly.
“When you get to be with folks in a room all day, for two days, we get to really know each other, and I really appreciated that time,” Mayadev said. “I spoke to some of my new colleagues in the Republican caucus, and we talked about things that we could do together and places that we actually find a lot of common ground.”
Some of the common ground came in the form of connecting on a personal level, Mayadev said. She said she had a conversation with one of her colleagues from across the aisle, whose kids were getting sick.
“I talked about how my kids growing up would get ill in childcare, and how you fight lots of colds this time of year,” Mayadev said. “They might be seen as mundane conversations, but they’re really important.”
The sentiment was shared by other lawmakers.
Republican Rep.-elect Lindee Brill of Sheboygan said the “cool” part about lawmakers in the U.S. is that they are elected by the people.
Rep.-elect Lindee Brill (Courtesy of Brill)
“You’re all of a sudden surrounded by a lot of different people who come from a whole lot of different backgrounds,” Brill said. She noted that there were “a lot more Democrat freshmen than there were Republican.”
“I had great conversations with them over the two days. When it comes down to it, you know, the people elected us to each of our districts, and so we need to, we need to figure out what that looks like to best serve Wisconsin,” Brill said. “There are 99 seats, and us 99 are going to soundly represent the people of Wisconsin, so we have to figure out how to best serve them.”
What incoming lawmakers are hoping to work on next session
Phelps said that he envisions that his office will serve as a “megaphone” for the issues important to his district in the Capitol and also will communicate what’s going on in the Capitol to his district.
Phelps said he wanted to get to work as soon as possible after being elected because he knows that the first part of the odd-numbered session year will go by fast and that the state budget, which will be written then, is powerful.
Phelps said he started reaching out to speak with local elected officials, including town board members, school board members, mayors, council presidents, in the weeks following his elections.
“No one person can know off the top of their head what the most important thing is for all 13 of 13 townships, particularly when I haven’t taken office yet,” Phelps said. “I just kind of wanted to open the door to say: what is that?”
Phelps said he especially is working to identify the issues most important to working class voters in his district, which is a bipartisan group.
“They want investments in their public schools, and they want to stabilize health care in the Chippewa Valley, after the hospital closures and clinic closures there,” Phelps said. “I met so many people who told me that they identify themselves as conservative or moderate, but agreed with me on a number of values based or policy based proposals.”
Similarly, Habush Sinykin said she has been meeting with constituents, with community leaders and with legislators. She also was able to have a discussion with Gov. Tony Evers about the upcoming budget. She said her advocacy focus will be “two-fold” as she wants to help find a “balance between how we can invest in our state to move Wisconsin forward, economically, educationally” to keep and attract young families and addressing “the needs of people to have some tax relief, whether it be income tax and or property tax relief.”
Brill of Sheboygan said she wants to be a “reachable representative” and to create an open dialogue with her constituents. She said she ran for office “for the future of my child,” after spending much of her life in the area.
“A year ago, I didn’t know this is what God had in mind for me, so it’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but I’m excited for the opportunity,” Brill said.
Brill comes to the Assembly having most recently worked at faith-based nonprofits, including at Samaritan’s Hand, a Sheboygan drug and alcohol clinic and earlier at Anchor of Hope, a crisis pregnancy center in Sheboygan.
Brill said she wants to work on the fentanyl crisis in the state and “protecting life [in] every possible way.” Brill described herself as a “pro-life” candidate, having run her campaign with the endorsement of Pro-Life Wisconsin and the promise not to “change my viewpoint on life beginning at conception.” She said she also wants to help shape the state’s elections processes.
When it comes to the state budget, Brill said she’s still learning about the process, but thinks the state could take cues from the incoming Trump administration.
“I believe we’ll get good guidance from the federal [government] and then we’ll be able to follow suit with what he has in mind,” Brill said. She is excited about Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos recently announced that the Assembly will have a Government Oversight, Accountability and Transparency (GOAT) Committee next session, to mirror DOGE.
Mayadev said she plans to use her skills to work for women, children and working families in the Assembly.
One issue she hopes the state will take action on is Medicaid expansion for postpartum mothers. She said she watched as the effort to have Wisconsin join the majority of the country in covering postpartum care for a year, rather than the current 60 days, failed. It passed the Senate but was never taken up in the Assembly. Wisconsin and Arkansas are the only two states in the U.S. that have not extended and do not plan to extend coverage.
“This is critical. Coverage is critical. We need to work on all facets for women’s health, but if they don’t have coverage, especially postpartum, how are they supposed to get the care they need for themselves and their babies and families?” Mayadev said.
Mayadev said she had discussions with some of her Republican colleagues and there is an understanding that they need to work together to get things done on some issues.
“We know inflation has hit our families’ pocketbooks. We know that child care expenses and just the availability of finding child care [of] high quality is very difficult in our state,” Mayadev said. “We need to do things for our constituents, rather than just obstinance and sitting on opposite sides of the fence… I hope that continues.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify a quote.
(The Center Square) – The latest pitch for Wisconsin’s budget surplus would see nearly a billion dollars spent on clean water projects across the state.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s population was estimated at 5.96 million as of July 1, an increase from 5.90 million a year before and up from 5.89 million in July 2020, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Shereen Siewert, publisher of the Wausau Pilot and Review, has been breathing easier these days. In September, a Wisconsin appeals court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of state Sen. Cory Tomczyk’s defamation lawsuit against Siewert, the nonprofit newsroom she founded in 2017 and one of its reporters.
The ruling, which Tomczyk did not appeal, ended a three-year legal nightmare that began after the Pilot and Review reported that Tomczyk, before joining the Legislature, “was widely overheard” calling a 13-year-old boy a “fag” at a Marathon County board meeting about a surprisingly contentious resolution affirming community inclusivity. Tomczyk denied using the slur and accused the news outlet of having “smeared” his reputation.
Although the Pilot and Review prevailed, the lawsuit took a severe financial and emotional toll, including some $200,000 in legal bills, lost donors and sponsors and the trauma of fearing bankruptcy while Siewert was caring for her dying sister and mother.
“I had serious conversations with my son about selling him my home if I couldn’t pay my legal bills,” says Siewert, noting that she was personally named in the suit. “I woke up in a panic thinking — I’m 56 years old and am about to lose everything.”
Jim Malewitz
The case drives home the need for what are sometimes called anti-SLAPP laws; the acronym stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation. While 34 states and the District of Columbia have enacted such laws to protect media and individuals from frivolous defamation lawsuits, Wisconsin has not.
“We are starkly aware that any reporter and any news organization in Wisconsin can be sued at any time for anything,” Siewert says. “Every time we write a story, we’re putting our livelihood on the line.”
Bills introduced last year by Democrats would have allowed Wisconsin judges to quickly dismiss SLAPP suits and require plaintiffs to pay the defendants’ legal fees. The state’s GOP-controlled Legislature did not even give them a hearing. But 2025 offers lawmakers a fresh opportunity to pass anti-SLAPP legislation.
Under the current standard set for defamation of public figures, a news outlet must show “actual malice” in publishing the information in question — either knowing it to be false or with “reckless disregard” as to its veracity. The Pilot and Review argued, and both a trial court judge and three-member appeals court panel unanimously agreed, that Tomczyk, as a local businessman who publicly opposed a resolution to declare Wausau a “Community for All,” qualified as a public figure and had failed to prove “actual malice.”
Indeed, the record showed that the Pilot and Review took appropriate steps to affirm the accuracy of its reporting. Three people swore they heard him use the slur, which he acknowledged using on other occasions. (Tomczyk did not respond to requests for comment for this column.)
The two lead Democrats behind last year’s anti-SLAPP bills — Sen. Melissa Agard of Madison and Rep. Jimmy Anderson of Fitchburg — aren’t returning this session.
But Rep. Alex Joers, D-Middleton, expects his colleagues will revive the legislation in 2025 and hopes slimmer partisan margins will encourage more compromise than in the past. The Assembly’s unanimous passage last year of a bill to protect student media from censorship showed Republicans and Democrats can find common ground on press protections. (The bill, however, died in the Senate.)
The benefits of an anti-SLAPP law would extend beyond newsrooms. Joers, who worked for Agard before joining the Legislature, recalled Agard researching the issue after learning that companies were suing people who left negative reviews on Yelp. Anti-SLAPP laws in other states — including Republican-led Texas and Tennessee — have protected residents from expensive lawsuits.
“This could happen to anybody,” Joers said.
It should happen to no one.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Council member Jim Malewitz is managing editor of Wisconsin Watch.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously authorized an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of nearly 200 absentee ballots that were never counted from the November 2024 election.
It’s the first such investigation that the bipartisan commission has authorized since becoming an agency in 2016. The review will allow the agency to probe whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the law or abused her discretion.
Ahead of the vote, Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs told Votebeat that her priority wasn’t “punishment” but to figure out “what on earth went wrong here.”
“Our lack of knowledge, information that wasn’t given to us in a timely fashion, I think we need to do something more formal,” Jacobs said at the meeting.
The late discovery that 193 absentee ballots from voters in the state capital weren’t counted appears to have resulted from mistakes at two polling locations and the lack of a comprehensive system for poll workers to track whether they’ve counted every absentee ballot.
At a polling site in Ward 56, just west of downtown, Witzel-Behl said election workers didn’t open two large carrier envelopes — used to transport absentee ballots from city offices to neighborhood polling places for counting — that contained a total of 125 ballots. At another site in the Regent neighborhood, poll workers at Ward 65 didn’t open an envelope carrying 68 absentee ballots, including one ballot that should have instead been sent to a different polling place for counting.
It’s unclear whether the uncounted ballots were checked in when they were sorted at the Madison clerk’s office. If they had been, a discrepancy between the number of recorded voters and ballots would likely have been apparent on Election Day.
The city’s election results were certified without any acknowledgment of the 193 missing ballots. Some of the missing ballots were discovered on Nov. 12, as the county canvass was still going on, though most weren’t found until nearly a month after Election Day.
When the initial batch was discovered on Nov. 12, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat, “Staff was under the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, unless we had a recount.”
The oversight wasn’t reported to the commission until Dec. 18, about six weeks after the Nov. 5 election and after the commission had already certified the results. Madison officials outside the clerk’s office, including the city attorney and the mayor’s office, didn’t know about the error until the commission told City Attorney Mike Haas about it on Dec. 19.
“There’s been zero transparency on this,” Jacobs said.
Witzel-Behl said she was largely out of the office on vacation during that period and “was not aware of the magnitude of this situation.”
Last week, Witzel-Behl told Votebeat that she still doesn’t know why the three carrier envelopes containing 193 absentee ballots were overlooked on Election Day.
“My issue is not with the magnitude,” GOP Commissioner Don Millis said. “While the magnitude is significant, the issue is why was this not determined or caught by the time of either the local canvass or county canvass.”
“My assumption,” he continued, “is either there was a failure to follow procedures, or our procedures aren’t good and we have to correct them.”
Marge Bostelmann, a Republican commissioner and former clerk, said the WEC can provide guidance to prevent similar mistakes, but she said, “unless we find out how it happened, I don’t know that we can give that guidance.”
Jacobs pointed out the spring primary elections are scheduled for Feb. 18, adding urgency to the investigation.
“We have about six weeks until our next election, so the more information we can learn about what went wrong — even if we’re only able to send out a quickie clerks memo saying, ‘Hey, there’s a step here. Don’t forget about it,’ as we work on more formal guidance — I think we want to do that,” Jacobs said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Attempts to implement a red flag gun control measure in Wisconsin have been rebuffed several times in recent years, but some legislators hope the results of November’s election can change that.
“When the political dynamic shifts in the Legislature, we have a better shot at not only introducing the (red flag) legislation but giving it a fair public hearing,” said Dora Drake, current state representative and senator-elect. “The people of Wisconsin overwhelmingly support red flag laws.”
Red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders, allow judges to issue court orders to temporarily restrict access to guns by individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others.
A red flag resolution was last introduced in Wisconsin in July 2023 but was shelved along with other resolutions in April.
In an interview before the election, Drake said she was hopeful that Democrats, who overwhelmingly support red flag laws, would assume a majority control in the Wisconsin Assembly.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, when the Wisconsin Legislature returns, Republicans will be in charge but have the narrowest majority since 2011, when they took control.
A push for stronger gun control laws
Drake said Wisconsin Republican lawmakers have not done enough when it comes to gun control measures. As a result, she said, people are at risk.
“As Democrats, we just want common sense laws on gun control, and that doesn’t mean we’re trying to take away someone’s Second Amendment rights,” she said. “People are tired of life being unnecessarily taken away.”
Jacob Taylor, communications director for Sen. LaTonya Johnson, said he thinks Gov. Tony Evers will once again include Extreme Risk Protection Orders policy in his biennial budget proposal. If Republicans remove it, he said, it will be reintroduced by Johnson and other legislators.
Red flag “legislation will remain a priority for Senator Johnson and other Democrats committed to reducing gun violence in our state,” Taylor said.
Twenty-one other states, including neighboring states Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, have already enacted red flag measures.
In March, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center, which provides training and technical assistance to law enforcement, judges, social service providers and others on how to implement red flag laws.
Gun laws don’t address core issues, opponents say
Nik Clark, founder and chairman of Wisconsin Carry Inc., a group that advocates for Second Amendment protections, said his organization is against red flag laws for a number of reasons.
Specifically, he doesn’t believe the laws will reduce crime.
“Ninety-five percent of crime is committed by people who are already felons and not even allowed to have a gun,” Clark said.
He said red flag laws and other gun control measures such as universal background checks are attempts by the government to weaken due processes for gun owners, making it easier for their weapons to be unlawfully seized.
He said taking away people’s rights to legally bear arms won’t make communities safer.
“If someone is willing to harm someone else, they don’t care about any laws,” Clark said. “We spend so much time on trying to prevent things, and we need to spend more time on preparedness to address them.”
What do Extreme Risk Protection Order laws do?
Nick Matuszewski is the director of policy and program at WAVE Educational Fund, Wisconsin’s oldest anti-violence advocacy group.
He said Extreme Risk Protection Order laws add a layer of protection for communities by improving the system in which a gun can be removed from people in crisis or are looking to harm themselves or others.
These laws “can be applied in cases where family members and other folks in the community are able to notice that there are dangers,” Matuszewski said.
He said red flag laws are known to reduce firearm suicides and can help prevent mass shootings.
“Unfortunately, there are too many folks in the state legislature . . . beholden to the gun lobby and are unwilling to enact a gun policy that infringes upon that relationship,” Matuszewski said.
What happens next?
Now that the dust has mostly settled from Election Day and Republicans still control the Assembly and Senate, will anything change?
Drake said lawmakers need to work together to move the needle in the right direction when it comes to preventing gun violence.
“We’ve already experienced so much trauma in our own communities, but there are things we can do to be preventative and intervene before more lives are lost, like implementing red flag laws,” she said.
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