Official proof of three things — identity, age and citizenship or qualifying immigration status — is required to obtain a Social Security number.
For U.S.-born adults, required documents include a U.S. birth certificate or a U.S. passport, though most U.S.-born citizens are issued a Social Security number at birth.
Noncitizens can apply if they have U.S. permission to work in the U.S. or permanent resident status (U.S.-issued green card). Less common are nonworking immigrants, such as those issued a student visa, who need a Social Security number.
“Merely showing a bill or a school ID is not sufficient,” Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration, told Wisconsin Watch.
Elon Musk claimed March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that “basically, you can show … a medical bill and a school ID and get a Social Security number.”
Trump administration officials did not reply to emails seeking comment.
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In September, California adopted a law that prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification to vote.
The law states that voter ID laws “have historically been used to disenfranchise” certain voters, including those of color or low-income.
The law says California ensures election integrity by requiring a driver’s license number or Social Security number at registration and verifying the voter’s signature with the voter’s registration form.
Voter ID supporters say requiring a photo ID helps prevent voter fraud and increases public confidence in elections.
California is among 14 states that don’t use voter ID. They verify voter identity in other ways, usually signature verification, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.
Wisconsin has required photo ID since 2016. On April 1, voters approved a referendum adding that requirement to the state constitution.
Elon Musk alluded to the California law during remarks March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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City of Milwaukee election officials process absentee ballots at one location on Election Day, which sometimes means ballots are still being fed into tabulators late that night or early the next morning. Results are reported once processing finishes.
Conservative Brad Schimel, who faces liberal Susan Crawford in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, suggested the late counting was malfeasance, a long-debunked claim.
Schimel on March 18 urged supporters to vote early “so we don’t have to worry that at 11:30 in Milwaukee, they’re going to find bags of ballots that they forgot to put into the machines, like they did in 2018, or in 2024.”
Schimel lost his attorney general re-election bid in 2018. Republican Eric Hovde lost to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in the Nov. 5, 2024, election.
State law prohibits municipalities from preparing absentee ballots before Election Day. A bill that would allow an earlier start has stalled.
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The Elon Musk–founded America PAC has spent at least $11.5 million on the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, WisPolitics reported March 24.
That doesn’t count another $3 million the PAC gave to the Wisconsin Republican Party, which can funnel unlimited funds to candidates.
Both support conservative candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford.
The nonprofit campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets tracks cumulative independent group spending in state supreme court and appellate court races through 2024.
Its figures indicate the biggest spender nationally is the Citizens for Judicial Fairness, which spent a total of $11.4 million in the 2020 and 2022 Illinois court races.
OpenSecrets’ data cover about two-thirds of the states; not all states report independent expenditures.
The progressive A Better Wisconsin Together has spent $9.2 million on ads backing Crawford, according to ad tracker AdImpact.
Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said March 18 he believed Musk’s spending might be a national record.
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About 60% of federal spending is mandatory — appropriations are automatic.
About 27% is discretionary spending, and about 13% pays federal debt interest.
On mandatory spending, more than half is for Medicare and Social Security.
About 69 million people receive monthly Social Security retirement or disability payments. About 68 million get Medicare, which is health insurance for people 65 and older, and some people under 65 with certain conditions.
Discretionary spending requires annual approvals by Congress and the president. Abouthalf is for defense. The rest goes to programs such as transportation, education and housing.
Projected total federal spending in fiscal 2025 is $7 trillion, up about 58% from $4.45 trillion in fiscal 2019.
President Donald Trump pledged March 4 to balance the budget “in the near future.” But the federal debt is projected to grow about $2 trillion annually through 2035.
On March 12, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., said most federal government spending is mandatory.
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The Social Security Administration’s actuary estimated that 30,000 people died in 2023 while waiting for a decision on their application for disability benefits.
That’s according to testimony given to a U.S. Senate committee Sept. 11, 2024, by Martin O’Malley, who was then the Social Security commissioner.
O’Malley said disability applicants wait on average nearly eight months for an initial decision and almost eight more months if they are denied and request reconsideration.
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) makes monthly payments to people who have a disability that stops or limits their ability to work. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) pays people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.
Social Security announced Feb. 28 it plans to cut 7,000 of its 57,000 workers, part of the Trump administration’s initiative to reduce the federal workforce.
The deaths claim was made March 9 in Altoona, Wisconsin, by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
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Wisconsin Watch has fact-checked 10 claims about the backgrounds and positions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates, liberal Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel.
Here’s a look at positions the candidates have taken on immigration, the Jan. 6 riot, abortion, Act 10 and more, as well as at some criminal cases they handled.
Did Schimel say he had ‘no objection’ to Jan. 6 pardons issued by Donald Trump?
Schimel has said he supports presidential use of pardons, but that rioters who were violent at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, should not have been pardoned. Crawford claimed Schimel had no objection to Trump’s “blanket pardons.”
Has Crawford supported stopping deportations and protecting sanctuary cities?
There’s no readily available evidence to back a Republican attack ad that claimed Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, which limit how much they help authorities with deportations.
Did Crawford sentence a child sex offender to four years in prison after a prosecutor requested 10 years?
In 2020, Crawford sentenced a Dane County man to four years in prison and six years of probation after a prosecutor requested 10 years in prison and five years of probation. The defense had requested only probation. The man was charged with touching a 6-year-old girl’s privates in a club swimming pool in 2010 and with twice touching a 7-year-old girl’s privates in the same pool on one day in 2018.
Crawford said the crimes occurring years apart made the man a repeat offender, requiring prison, but were less serious than other sexual assaults, and that 10 years was longer than needed for rehabilitation.
Has Schimel supported Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law?
Schimel has campaigned supporting the law, which bans abortion except to protect the mother’s life, asking “what is flawed” about it. He recalled in 2012 supporting an argument to maintain the law, to make abortion illegal if Roe v. Wade were overturned.
Schimel has also said Wisconsin residents should decide “by referendum or through their elected legislature on what they want the law to say” on abortion.
Was a sexual assault convict freed after Crawford’s office failed to file an appeal?
In 2001, while Crawford led the state Justice Department’s appeals unit, a lawyer in the unit failed to meet a court deadline, resulting in a sex offender being freed two years into his seven-year prison sentence.
Did Schimel try to repeal the Affordable Care Act?
As Waukesha County’s district attorney, Schimel offered a plea deal to a man charged with possession of child pornography. In the year before Schimel won the state attorney general’s election, in 2014, the man’s lawyer made monthly contributions to Schimel’s campaign totaling $5,500. In exchange for the man pleading guilty to the charge, in 2015, Schimel agreed not to file more charges and recommended the mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence, which is what was imposed.
Did Wisconsin taxpayers pay $1.6 million over an abortion restriction law that was ruled unconstitutional?
Legal fees totaling $1.6 million were paid to Planned Parenthood and others who sued over a 2013 Wisconsin law that was ruled an unconstitutional restriction on abortion access. Schimel was responsible for some of the costs. He became state attorney general in 2015 and pursued appeals of the ruling.
Crawford was among attorneys who sued seeking to overturn the 2011 law, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions. Act 10 spurred mass protests for weeks in Madison and has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.
Crawford was one of three lawyers in a 2011 lawsuit challenging the requirement, which the state Supreme Court rejected. In 2016, she said the law would be “acceptable” if voters could sign an affidavit swearing to their identity rather than providing proof of identification. In 2018, she called the law “draconian.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel has said he supports presidents using pardons, but that violent rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, should not have been pardoned.
Schimel’s opponent in the April 1 election, Susan Crawford, claimed Schimel “went so far as to say he had no objection” to President Donald Trump’s “blanket pardons” for the rioters.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or vowed to dismiss cases against all 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the riot, including people convicted of assaulting police.
On Jan. 27, Schimel told reporters “I don’t object to (presidents) utilizing that power.” Later that day, he said “anyone convicted of assaulting law enforcement should serve their full sentence,” but didn’t say Trump shouldn’t have issued the pardons.
In a subsequent interview, Schimel said anyone who committed violence Jan. 6, “I don’t think, on a personal level, they should have been pardoned.”
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Wisconsin sheriffs have discretion on whether to report a person booked into county jails to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Racine County Republican, alluded to the background checking Feb. 25.
Vos spoke about an Assembly bill he co-sponsored that would require sheriffs to request proof of legal presence status from individuals jailed for a felony offense.
Former Brown County Sheriff John Gossage, executive director of the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association, said most Wisconsin sheriffs report to ICE a person who is jailed on a felony charge and doesn’t have proof, such as a Social Security number or immigration visa, of legal presence in the U.S.
ICE can ask, but jails are not required, to hold a person for 48 hours if ICE wants to pick up that person for an alleged immigration violation.
MilwaukeeCounty doesn’t report inmate immigration status to ICE. DaneCounty also doesn’t assist ICE.
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There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.
Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.
Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.
The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.
The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.
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Experts said they know of no states that routinely audit insurance companies over denying health care claims.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Feb. 18 he wants to make his state the first to audit based on high rates of claim denials and do “corrective action” enforced through fines.
The Wisconsin insurance commissioner’s office and expertsfrom the KFF health policy nonprofit and Georgetown University saidthey know of no states using claim denial rates to trigger audits.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the national state auditors association said they do not track whether states do such auditing.
ProPublica reported in 2023 it surveyed every state’s insurance agency and found only 45 enforcement actions since 2018 involving denials that violated coverage mandates.
Forty-five percent of U.S. adults surveyed in 2023 said they were billed in the past year for a medical service they thought should have been free or covered by their insurance.
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In 2020, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford sentenced Kevin D. Welton to four years in prison after a prosecutor requested 10.
Welton was charged with touching a 6-year-old girl’s privates in a club swimming pool in 2010 and with twice touching a 7-year-old girl’s privates in the same pool on one day in 2018.
Welton was convicted of three felonies, including first-degree sexual contact.
Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel are running in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
An ad from an Elon Musk–funded group said Crawford could have imposed 100 years.
A 100-year maximum wasallowed, but highly unlikely, given the prosecutor’s request. Welton’s lawyer requested probation.
Crawford said the crimes occurring years apart made Welton a repeat offender, requiring prison, but were less serious than other sexual assaults, and 10 years was longer than needed for rehabilitation.
Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in Wisconsin’s April 1 Supreme Court election, has supported Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law but also says voters should decide abortion questions.
The liberal candidate, Susan Crawford, claimed Schimel “wants to bring back” the law, which bans abortion except to protect the mother’s life.
Wisconsin abortions were halted, due to uncertainty over the 1849 law, after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, but resumed in 2023 after a judge’s ruling.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is deciding whether the 1849 law became valid with Roe’s reversal, said Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather.
Schimel has campaigned supporting the law, asking “what is flawed” about it. He recalled in 2012 supporting an argument to maintain the law, to make abortion illegal if Roe were overturned.
Schimel said Feb. 18 Wisconsinites should decide “by referendum or through their elected legislature on what they want the law to say” on abortion.
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Twenty-onestates, including Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia offered Election Day voter registration for the Nov. 5 election.
That meant eligible voters could both register and cast a ballot on Election Day.
North Dakota has no registration but requires proof of identification to vote.
Republican Eric Hovde claimed Feb. 12 that the number of states was six. He suggested fraud caused his Nov. 5 loss to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.
The margin was nearly 29,000 votes (49.3% to 48.5%).
Hovde didn’t reply to a call for comment.
He mighthave been alluding to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which exempted six states. Wisconsin was exempted because it had Election Day registration.
Wisconsin requires proof of residency to register and photo identification to vote.
Its same-day registration can complicate verifying eligibility of certain voters.
Wisconsin’s spring election, featuring two candidates for Supreme Court, is April 1; the primary, featuring three candidates for state schools superintendent, is Feb. 18.
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Recent peer-reviewed studies connect water fluoridation with less dental decay in children.
A Feb. 4 post on a Wisconsin section of Reddit raised the issue.
The post alludedto a pediatrician’s 2019 statement that dental infections increased significantly after Calgary, Alberta, ended fluoridation in 2011.
Calgary aims to reintroduce fluoridation by March 2025.
In a 2021 study Canadian researchers found that seven years after Calgary ended fluoridation, 65% of Calgary second grade children had cavities, versus 55% in Edmonton, Alberta, which fluoridated.
Canadian researchers in 2024 reported more occurrences of general anesthesia dental treatments among children in non-fluoridated communities.
Israeli researchers in 2024 found treatment of dental problems among children doubled after Israel stopped fluoridation.
The American Dental Association and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control supportfluoridation.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. hasadvocated for ending fluoridation.
About 84% of Wisconsinites had fluoridated water in 2024, down from 87% in 2022, as more communities stopped fluoridating water systems.
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Federal data show that airline flights are safer than other major transportation modes in the U.S.
A claim about safety was made by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy after 67 people were killed in the Jan. 29 midair collision of an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter near Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Duffy is a Republican former congressman from northern Wisconsin.
Highway transportation accounts for 95% of fatalities and over 99% of injuries from transportation incidents.
From 2008 through 2022, airline flights had lower passenger death rates than buses, railroad passenger trains and passenger vehicles, according to the latest annual figures.
The rate is deaths per 100,000 passenger miles.
In 2022, the rates were:
0.001: Air
0.004: Bus
0.03: Rail
0.54: Passenger vehicles
There were four fatal airline crashes from 2008 through 2022.
The lifetime odds of dying as an aircraft passenger in the U.S. are “too small to calculate,” the nonprofit National Safety Council said.
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A man convicted of sexual assault was freed after an office led by Susan Crawford missed a court deadline.
In an ad, Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, suggested that Crawford, the liberal candidate, was personally responsible.
In October 1999, a Waukesha County jury convicted Thomas Gogin of second-degree sexual assault. Gogin contended the sex was consensual. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In July 2001, a Waukesha-based state appeals court ordered a new trial. It ruled Gogin’s attorney made errors that could have affected the verdict.
An attorney in the Wisconsin Justice Department’s appeals unit, led by Crawford, missed the deadline to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Gogin, who served about two years in prison, was not retried. Instead the Waukesha County district attorney offered a plea deal. Gogin pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to five years of probation.
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As Wisconsin’s attorney general, Brad Schimel helped lead a 20-state lawsuit that sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
The federal law, known as Obamacare, expanded health insurance coverage by offering exchanges and subsidies for individuals to buy health insurance, and in other ways.
The 2018 lawsuit argued Obamacare was made unconstitutional by a 2017 tax law change signed by President Donald Trump. Schimel at the time called Obamacare “overreaching and harmful.”
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. It ruled the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing to sue. However, it didn’t decide whether Obamacare was unconstitutional.
Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, criticized Schimel’s lawsuit. Schimel is the conservative candidate.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Obamacare; 72% of Republicans have an unfavorable view.
A record 313,579 Wisconsin residents signed up for health insurance through Obamacare during the 2025 open enrollment.
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The Laken Riley Act requires federal authorities to detain immigrants who entered the country illegally and are arrested for, or charged with, violent crimes or theft, including shoplifting.
Immigrants without authorization can also be deported if convicted of certain felonies or “moral turpitude” crimes, including theft.
But the Laken Riley Act does not require conviction.
The Act does not state age restrictions, though minors have detention protections.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, made a claim about shoplifting and the Act before President Donald Trump signed it on Jan. 29.
Riley, a Georgia college student, was murdered Feb. 22, 2024, by a Venezuelan. Border Patrol agents apprehended him for illegal entry in September 2022. He was released to pursue his case in immigration court.
Researchshows that immigrants are not more likely than native-born U.S. citizens to commit crimes.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Most inmates in Wisconsin’s federal prison, and in federal prisons nationally, are U.S. citizens.
Following Trump administration arrests of immigrants suspected or convicted of crimes, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin claimed Jan. 27 that over 50% of inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, are “illegal aliens.”
Oxford is a low-security prison 60 miles north of Madison that houses 1,100 male offenders.
As of Jan. 25, 59% of Oxford inmates, and 85% of federal inmates nationally, were U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not readily have data on what percentage of inmates are unauthorized immigrants.
Nationally:
U.S. citizens constituted two-thirds of recently federally sentenced individuals.
The most serious offense for 76% of noncitizens sentenced for a federal crime in recent years was immigration-related, such as unlawful U.S. entry or smuggling noncitizens (14% were drug-related).
Donald Trump’s administration has called unauthorized immigrants criminals, but being undocumented is a civil violation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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