As the first news outlets began calling the Wisconsin Supreme Court election for the liberal candidate Susan Crawford, her opponent called her — to concede.

Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: “Cheater.”

Schimel didn’t hesitate. “No,” he responded. “You’ve got to accept the results.” Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass.

In any other American era, Schimel’s concession wouldn’t be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation’s politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don’t.

“It shouldn’t be super laudable,” said Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. “But given where we are and given what we’ve seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.”

Accusations of cheating are common now

Over the past several years, numerous Republicans — and some Democrats — have lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud, harassed election officials and pointed to “irregularities” to dispute their election losses. President Donald Trump led that movement in 2020, when he filed lawsuits in battleground states, including one thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Schimel’s concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today’s divisive atmosphere.

Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he’d lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford’s lead grew to around 10 percentage points.

“The numbers aren’t going to — aren’t going to turn around,” he told the crowd. “They’re too bad, and we’re not going to pull this off.”

By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud.

Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they’ve dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat.

Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to “add to political strife through a contentious recount” even as he raised debunked election conspiracies.

In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out.

Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens.

Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the “future of America and Western civilization.”

But after the results came in, he said he “expected to lose” and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin’s Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn’t post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win.

An assessment: ‘That’s democracy’

Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an “algorithm” was behind Crawford’s win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, “Election fraud should be investigated.”

But at Schimel’s watch party, several supporters applauded his high road.

“He was all class,” said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. “That’s how you lose.”

Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state’s congressional districts. “But you can’t exactly change it,” Manka said, calling Schimel “very graceful” in his defeat. “This is democracy.”

Crawford, in an interview Wednesday, said Schimel’s phone call was “the way elections should conclude” and said she would have done the same thing if she had lost.

The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: “We know who won, we know who lost.” He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsin resident, understands that.

“It’s transparent, and we accept the final score,” Mittleman said. “That’s democracy.”

Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride.

“Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?” Schimel said between songs. “Put it on my tab.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Brad Schimel publicly quashes shouts that opponent cheated in Wisconsin Supreme Court race is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.

Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political battles.

Trump, Musk and other Republicans lined up behind Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Crawford.

The first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out $1 million checks to voters.

Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Republicans, referring to Musk as “Elon Schimel” during a debate.

Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who, if elected, would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.

Crawford’s win keeps the court under a 4-3 liberal majority, as it has been since 2023. A liberal justice is not up for election again until April 2028, ensuring liberals will either maintain or increase their hold on the court until then. The two most conservative justices are up for re-election in 2026 and 2027.

The court likely will be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries. Who controls the court also could factor into how it might rule on any future voting challenge in the perennial presidential battleground state, which raised the stakes of the race for national Republicans and Democrats.

Musk and groups he funded poured more than $21 million into the contest. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, campaigned for Schimel in the closing weeks and said electing him was essential to protecting the Republican agenda. Trump endorsed Schimel just 11 days before the election.

Schimel, who leaned into his Trump endorsement in the closing days of the race, said he would not be beholden to the president or Musk despite the massive spending on the race by groups that Musk supports.

Crawford benefitted from campaign stops by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee last year, and money from billionaire megadonors including Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

The contest was the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. That broke the previous record of $51 million for the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023.

All of the spending and attention on the race led to high early voting turnout, with numbers more than 50% higher than the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago.

Crawford was elected to a 10-year term replacing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is retiring after 30 years on the bench.

Wisconsin enshrines voter ID in state constitution

Wisconsin’s photo ID requirement for voting will be elevated from state law to constitutional amendment under a proposal approved by voters.

The Republican-controlled Legislature placed the measure on the ballot and pitched it as a way to bolster election security and protect the law from being overturned in court.

Democratic opponents argued that photo ID requirements are often enforced unfairly, making voting more difficult for people of color, disabled people and poor people.

Wisconsin voters won’t notice any changes when they go to the polls. They will still have to present a valid photo ID just as they have under the state law, which was passed in 2011 and went into effect permanently in 2016 after a series of unsuccessful lawsuits.

Placing the photo ID requirement in the constitution makes it more difficult for a future Legislature controlled by Democrats to change the law. Any constitutional amendment must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions and by a statewide popular vote.

Republican legislators celebrated the measure’s passage.

“This will help maintain integrity in the electoral process, no matter who controls the Legislature,” Sen. Van Wanggaard, who co-authored the amendment, said in a statement.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who is leading Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, also noted the outcome on his social media platform, X, saying: “Yeah!”

Wisconsin is one of nine states where people must present photo ID to vote, and its requirement is the nation’s strictest, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty-six states have laws requiring or requesting that voters show some sort of identification, according to the NCSL.

State schools chief Jill Underly wins reelection over GOP-backed rival

Jill Underly, the Democratic-backed state education chief, defeated her Republican-aligned opponent, Brittany Kinser.

Underly will guide policies affecting K-12 schools as Trump moves to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Her second term comes at a time when test scores are still recovering from the pandemic, Wisconsin’s achievement gap between white and Black students remains the worst in the country and more schools are asking voters to raise property taxes to pay for operations.

Wisconsin is the only state where voters elect the top education official but there is no state board of education. That gives the superintendent broad authority to oversee education policy, from disbursing school funding to managing teacher licensing.

Underly, 47, had the support of the teachers union in the general election after failing to secure it in the three-person primary. She also was backed financially by the state Democratic Party.

Underly, who was first elected as state superintendent in 2021, ran as a champion of public schools. Kinser is a supporter of the private school voucher program.

Underly’s education career began in 1999 as a high school social studies teacher in Indiana. She moved to Wisconsin in 2005 and worked for five years at the state education department. She also was principal of Pecatonica Elementary School for a year before becoming district administrator.

Kinser, whose backers included the Wisconsin Republican Party and former Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker, previously worked for Rocketship schools, part of a national network of public charter institutions. She rose to become its executive director in the Milwaukee region.

In 2022 she left Rocketship for City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee nonprofit that advocates for charter and voucher schools. She also founded a consulting firm where she currently works.

Kinser tried to brand Underly as being a poor manager of the Department of Public Instruction and keyed in on her overhaul of state achievement standards last year.

Underly said that was done to better reflect what students are learning now, but the change was met with bipartisan opposition including from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who was previously state superintendent himself. Evers did not make an endorsement in the race.

High turnout leads to ballot shortage in Milwaukee

Unprecedented turnout led to ballot shortages in Wisconsin’s largest city Tuesday as voters cast ballots in “historic” numbers.

The race for control of the court, which became a proxy battle for the nation’s political fights, broke records for spending and was poised to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever.

Early voting was more than 50% ahead of levels seen in the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago, when majority control was also at stake.

Seven polling sites in Milwaukee ran out of ballots, or were nearly out, due to “historic turnout” and more ballots were on their way before polls closed, said Paulina Gutierrez, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.

Clerks all across the state, including in the city’s deep-red suburbs, reported turnout far exceeding 2023 levels.

A state race with nationwide significance

The court can decide election-related laws and settle disputes over future election outcomes.

“Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin,” Trump said Monday. “Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so therefore the Supreme Court choice … it’s a big race.”

Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Trump, who endorsed Schimel 11 days before the election.

Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.

Voters in Eau Claire seemed to be responding to both messages. Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old retiree, said he voted for Schimel because he’s concerned about redistricting.

Jim Hazelton, a 68-year-old disabled veteran, said he had planned to abstain but voted for Crawford after Musk — whom he described as a “pushy billionaire” — and Trump got involved.

“He’s cutting everything,” Hazelton said of Musk. “People need these things he’s cutting.”

What’s on the court’s agenda?

The court will likely be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

Last year the court declined to take up a Democratic-backed challenge to congressional lines, but Schimel and Musk said that if Crawford wins, the court will redraw congressional districts to make them more favorable to Democrats. Currently Republicans control six out of eight seats in an evenly divided state.

Musk was pushing that message on Election Day, both on TV and the social media platform he owns, X, urging people to cast ballots in the final hours of voting.

There were no major voting issues by midday Tuesday, state election officials said. Severe weather prompted the relocation of some polling places in northern Wisconsin, and some polling places in Green Bay briefly lost power but voting continued. In Dane County, home to the state capital, Madison, election officials said polling locations were busy and operating normally.

Record-breaking donations

The contest is the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Musk contributed $3 million to the campaign, while groups he funded poured in another $18 million. Musk also gave $1 million each to three voters who signed a petition he circulated against “activist” judges.

Schimel leaned into his support from Trump while saying he would not be beholden to the president or Musk. Democrats centered their messaging on the spending by Musk-funded groups.

“Ultimately I think it’s going to help Susan Crawford, because people do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”

Democratic-backed Susan Crawford wins Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, cementing liberal majority is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A Wisconsin appellate court denied the state Democratic attorney general's request to stop billionaire Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters at a rally planned for Sunday

The post Wisconsin appeals court won’t stop Musk’s $1M payments to voters after attorney general sues appeared first on WPR.

Billionaire Elon Musk says a Wisconsin voter has been awarded $1 million days before the conclusion of a fiercely contested state Supreme Court election that has broken spending records and become a referendum on Musk and the first months of President Donald Trump’s administration.

The payment to a Green Bay man, which Musk announced Wednesday night on his social media platform X, is similar to a lottery that Musk’s political action committee ran last year in Wisconsin and other battleground states before the presidential election in November.

The upcoming election on Tuesday, filling a seat held by a liberal justice who is retiring, will determine whether Wisconsin’s highest court will remain under 4-3 liberal control or flip to a conservative majority. The race has become a proxy battle over the nation’s politics, with Trump and Musk getting behind Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate in the officially nonpartisan contest.

The campaign for the Democratic-supported candidate, Susan Crawford, blasted the $1 million payment from Musk as an attempt to illegally buy influence on the court in a state where Tesla, his electric car company, has a lawsuit pending that could end up before the court.

“It’s corrupt, it’s extreme, and it’s disgraceful to our state and judiciary,” Crawford spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said in a statement.

No legal action against Musk’s payments to voters has been filed in Wisconsin with the Supreme Court election five days away.

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said the payments were a last-minute attempt to influence the election.

“Whether or not Wisconsinites will believe this is legitimate or not probably won’t be settled until after the election,” he said. “But this is not what a Wisconsin Supreme Court election ought to be decided on. Races for the high court are supposed to be on judicial temperament and impartiality, not huge amounts of money for partisan purposes.”

Musk’s political action committee, America First, announced last week that it was offering $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges.” He did not say there would be $1 million prizes at that time, but in his post on Wednesday said an additional $1 million award would be made in two days.

It was not clear who determined the winner of the $1 million or how it was done.

Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the White House election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.

It is a felony in Wisconsin to offer, give, lend or promise to lend or give anything of value to induce a voter to cast a ballot or not vote.

The Musk petition says it is open only to registered Wisconsin voters, but those who sign it are not required to show any proof that they actually voted.

The petition says: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”

The petition, while designed to collect data on Wisconsin voters and energize them, also is in line with Trump’s agenda alleging that “activist” judges are illegally working against him. Trump’s administration is embroiled in several lawsuits related to his flurry of executive orders and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy.

During last year’s presidential race, Philadelphia’s district attorney sued in an attempt to stop the payments under Pennsylvania law. But a judge said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.

America PAC and Building for America’s Future, two groups that Musk funds, have spent more than $17 million trying to help elect Schimel, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. Musk also has given the Wisconsin Republican Party $3 million this year, which it can then give to Schimel or spend on the race.

More than $81 million has been spent on the race so far, obliterating the record for a judicial race in the U.S. of $51 million set in Wisconsin just two years ago, according to Brennan Center tallies.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Elon Musk announces $1 million for Wisconsin voter in Supreme Court race. Opposition calls it ‘corrupt’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and political groups he backs are pouring millions of dollars into the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court as the electric vehicle company sues to overturn a state law that prevents it from opening dealerships — a case that eventually could make its way to the high court.

Tesla’s multiple attempts to open its own dealerships in Wisconsin keep running up against a state law that allows only third parties, not auto manufacturers, to operate them. The company filed a lawsuit in January seeking an exemption, just as two Musk-backed political action committees started supporting the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel, over his opponent, Susan Crawford, who is supported by Democrats.

Musk, who is the world’s wealthiest person and is running President Donald Trump’s initiative to slash the size of the federal workforce, has given $3 million to the Wisconsin GOP while groups he supports have funneled more than $17 million into the race. The contributions are part of an extraordinary spending spree in the race, making it by far the most expensive judicial race on record in the United States. Total spending has eclipsed $80 million with days still to go before the final day of voting on April 1.

Schimel’s critics have accused Musk of trying to buy a favorable ruling for Tesla should the dealership case make it to the state Supreme Court. Here are details of the law and Musk’s lawsuit:

Why can’t Tesla set up Wisconsin dealerships?

State statutes generally prohibit vehicle manufacturers from owning or operating dealerships in Wisconsin and give that franchise to third parties. The law was intended to prevent manufacturers from undercutting independent dealerships.

Nearly 20 states have similar prohibitions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The laws took hold in the 1930s as carmakers started to rely on independent dealerships to sell and service vehicles so they could focus on production. Later, independent dealers wanted to prevent manufacturers from opening their own dealerships and driving them out of business.

Tesla sells its vehicles directly to consumers, who can have their vehicles shipped directly to them or to dealerships in 27 states. Because the company can’t set up its own dealerships in Wisconsin, buyers there must have the cars delivered to them or travel to dealerships in neighboring Minnesota or Illinois to pick them up.

Tesla officials have been working for almost a decade to secure an exemption from the law. In 2017 and 2021, Republican legislators introduced bills that would permit Tesla dealerships, but none of those made it out of the Legislature. They inserted an exemption for Tesla dealerships into the 2019-21 state budget, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers used his partial veto powers to erase the provision.

The Wisconsin Automobile and Truck Dealers Association has been fighting to preserve the law. Bill Sepic, the association’s president and CEO, told The Associated Press that Tesla should have to follow the law like any other vehicle manufacturer. He said the statutes exist to enable third parties to act as consumer advocates “in making one of the larger purchases of their life.”

What is the company doing now?

Tesla filed a lawsuit in state court in January seeking permission to open four dealerships in Wisconsin.

The company argues that independent dealers wouldn’t meet its standards and says selling vehicles at its own dealerships is in the public interest because unaffiliated dealers’ prices are higher and less transparent.

Its lawsuit says that the state law barring manufacturers from running their own dealerships violates economic liberty rights and that the prohibition exists only to protect independent dealers from competition.

The case is pending in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, though no hearings have been scheduled.

The state Justice Department is defending the law. An agency spokesperson declined to comment.

How did Musk get involved in the state Supreme Court race?

Schimel, the conservative state Supreme Court candidate, is vying with Crawford for an open seat on the high court.

The race is the most significant election nationally since the November presidential contest, providing an early barometer for Republicans and Democrats given the intense interest and outside spending it has generated. It also will determine whether the highest court in the perennial presidential battleground state will flip from liberal to conservative control with major cases involving abortion, union rights and congressional redistricting on the horizon.

Eight days after Tesla filed the Wisconsin dealership lawsuit, Musk tweeted: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!”

To be clear, there has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud in Wisconsin. Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state over then-President Donald Trump in 2020 was affirmed by a recount and an independent audit. Trump, a Republican, won the state last November and offered no objections then to the voting or ballot-counting.

According to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, Musk-backed groups America PAC and Building America’s Future have spent more than $17 million to support Schimel with ads and flyers. The money he donated to the state Republican Party has been used to help Schimel, who has been endorsed by Trump.

Are the candidates focused on the Tesla case?

Crawford’s supporters contend the timing of the contributions show Musk is trying to ensure that Schimel wins and creates a conservative majority on the court that ultimately would rule in Tesla’s favor. Crawford said during a debate with Schimel this month that Musk “has basically taken over Brad Schimel’s campaign.”

Sepic, president of the state dealership association, said Wisconsin should elect the candidate who enforces the prohibition but declined to comment when asked if he thought Schimel or Crawford would do that.

Schimel has repeatedly said he would treat any case involving Tesla the same as any other when he considers whether to hear it or recuse himself. Schimel also has insisted that the donations from Musk and his groups do not make him beholden to them.

Crawford has said the same thing about billionaires who have donated to her campaign, including George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Soros has contributed $2 million and Pritzker $1.5 million to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which has funneled the money to Crawford’s campaign.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Tesla is suing to open dealerships in Wisconsin. It’s become a big deal in state’s Supreme Court race is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The election to fill a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat has become a referendum not only on the new administration, but on Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become one of President Donald Trump ‘s top financial backers and the architect of his efforts to slash the federal workforce.

The April 1 election is the first major test in American politics since Trump secured a second term in November. It will serve as a crucial barometer of enthusiasm in both parties heading into next year’s midterm elections and is happening in a critical battleground state that Trump won by less than a percentage point.

It’s also a test for Musk himself. The Tesla CEO’s nascent political operation, which spent more than $200 million to help Trump win in November, is canvassing and advertising in Wisconsin on behalf of the conservative candidate. A win would cement his status as a conservative kingmaker, while a loss could give license to Republicans distancing themselves from his efforts to stymie government functions and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.

“This is the first major election held since Donald Trump took office,” said Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “And I think notably Democrats are concentrating more on Elon Musk than Donald Trump.”

Musk, who is the race’s biggest donor by far, has also inserted himself into the race, holding a get-out-the-vote event on his X platform Saturday.

“It might not seem important, but it’s actually really important. And it could determine the fate of the country,” he said. “This election is going to affect everyone in the United States.”

April 1’s election will determine majority control of a court facing critical issues: abortion rights, collective bargaining and voter access. They include decisions that could have major implications for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election, particularly if they end up hearing challenges to the state’s congressional maps, which could theoretically swing the balance of power in Washington if they are considerably redrawn.

In 2020, the court rejected Trump’s attempts to overturn his election loss in the battleground state in a 4-3 ruling. Trump had sought to have 221,000 ballots disqualified in the state’s two most Democratic counties.

Trump inflatables and America PAC petitions

The Supreme Court race is officially nonpartisan, but the campaign has been anything but. Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate, has openly courted Trump’s endorsement, which he received on Friday night, as he campaigns against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the Democrat-backed candidate.

The Waukesha County judge and former Republican attorney general attended the president’s inauguration in January and has said that he would be part of a “support system” for Trump. Earlier this month, he attended a “Mega MAGA rally” where he posed for a picture in front of a giant inflatable version of the president, which had a “Vote Brad Schimel Supreme Court” poster plastered on its chest.

He spoke on Musk’s get-out-the-vote call on Saturday. And he joined the president’s eldest son on stage at a get-out-the-vote rally, where Donald Trump Jr. said a Schimel win would protect his father’s agenda and keep up GOP momentum.

“We can’t just show up when Trump’s on the ticket,” he said at a brewery in the Milwaukee suburbs. “You have to engage because it’s not just about now, it’s about that future. This presidency could be put to a halt with this vote.”

Schimel has also resurfaced long-debunked conspiracies about voter fraud that Trump has embraced, urging his supporters to vote early to “make this too big to rig 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.”

Still, he pledged to judge any case that comes before him on its merits — including potential cases involving Trump and Musk.

Republicans have cast the race as a chance for Trump’s loyal supporters to rally around their leader and push back against liberal judges they accuse of working to stymie his agenda.

Mailers from Musk’s America PAC feature photographs of the president. “President Donald Trump needs your vote,” they read. Others warn that “Liberal Susan Crawford will stop President Trump’s agenda.”

America PAC is also offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition in opposition to “activist judges” — and another $100 for each signer they refer.

Republicans have argued that if even 60% of the voters who cast ballots for Trump in November turn out, Schimel can win, helping to drive momentum for the party heading into next year’s midterms.

“In theory, the opposition party should be energized, but we’re feeling very good about the energy on our side of the aisle,” said Andrew Iverson, Wisconsin GOP executive director.

Andrew Romeo, senior adviser to the Musk-backed group Building America’s Future, which has spent millions on the race, issued a recent memo advising Schimel’s campaign to remind voters that he is “a strong conservative and Trump ally.”

Two groups funded by Musk have so far spent more than $14 million on the race, according to a tally by the liberal Brennan Center for Justice — with plans to spend around $20 million total.

Musk donated another $2 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party on Thursday, the same day the party gave $1.2 million to Schimel’s campaign.

Under Wisconsin law, contributions to candidates are capped, but candidates can accept unlimited cash from state parties, which in turn can accept unlimited cash from donors.

His spending has helped make the race the most expensive judicial election in the nation’s history, with more than $73 million spent so far, according to the Brennan Center, breaking the record set by another Wisconsin Supreme Court race two years ago.

Crawford has also received her own support from billionaires, including philanthropist George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Democrats want race to be the people vs. Musk

Democrats are hoping to channel their voters’ outrage at the Trump administration by casting the race as an opportunity to stand up to Musk. After nearly a decade of running against the president, they see Musk as a potentially more divisive figure who can motivate their base voters to turn out.

“This race is the first real test point in the country on Elon Musk and his influence on our politics, and voters want an opportunity to push back on that and the influence he is trying to make on Wisconsin and the rest of country,” said Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman.

State Democrats have hosted a series of anti-Musk town halls, including one featuring former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and featured Musk heavily in ads.

Crawford has also seized on Musk, going as far as to refer to her opponent as “Elon Schimel” during a recent debate.

“Don’t let Elon buy the Supreme Court,” read billboards funded by the state Democratic party that depict Musk as Schimel’s puppeteer.

“There’s so many people who are desperate for a way to fight back against what Trump and Musk are doing nationally,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, and see the race as an “opportunity to punch back.”

Wikler said the party had seen an “explosive surge” in grassroots and small-donor fundraising from across the country tied to Musk’s involvement. Both in Wisconsin and nationally, Democrats are packing town halls and angrily protesting the Trump administration’s firings of thousands of workers and shutdown of agencies. They have also show disillusionment with their party’s own leaders.

“Most voters still don’t know who Crawford and Schimel are, but they have extremely strong feelings about Musk and Trump,” he said.

What’s at stake for Musk

Musk said Saturday that he became involved in the race because it “will decide how the congressional districts are drawn in Wisconsin,” echoing Schimel’s claims that Crawford would push through new congressional maps that could favor Democrats.

Schimel’s campaign has relentlessly attacked Crawford for participating in a call with Democratic donors that was advertised in an email as a “chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026,” a reference to the state’s redistricting fights that have played out for years.

Crawford has said that she didn’t know that that was how the call had been billed when she joined and that nothing of that nature had been discussed while she was on the line.

“In my opinion, that’s the most important thing, which is a big deal given that the congressional majority is so razor-thin,” Musk said. “It could cause the House to switch to Democrat if that redrawing takes place, and then we wouldn’t be able to get through the changes that the American people want.”

Musk has also been giving money to Republican members of Congress who have echoed his calls to impeach federal judges whose decisions he doesn’t like.

He has other interests at play.

Democrats and Crawford have noted that, just days before Musk’s groups started spending on the race, Musk’s electric car company Tesla sued Wisconsin over a rule banning car manufacturers from operating dealerships — forcing buyers to purchase Teslas out of state.

The case could ultimately go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court election becomes a referendum on Elon Musk is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A group funded by billionaire Elon Musk is offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” a move that comes two weeks before the state’s Supreme Court election and after the political action committee made a similar proposal last year in battleground states.

Musk’s political action committee America PAC announced the petition in a post on X on Thursday night. It promises $100 for each Wisconsin voter who signs the petition and another $100 for each signer the voter refers.

The campaign for Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court, said Musk was trying to buy votes ahead of the April 1 election. The offer was made two days after early voting started in the hotly contested race between Crawford and Brad Schimel, the preferred candidate of Musk and Republicans.

The winner of the election will determine whether the court remains under liberal control or flips to a conservative majority.

Musk’s PAC used a nearly identical tactic ahead of the November presidential election, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.

Philadelphia’s district attorney sued in an attempt to stop the payments under Pennsylvania law. But a judge said that prosecutors failed to show that the effort was an illegal lottery, and it was allowed to continue through Election Day.

America PAC and Building for America’s Future, two groups Musk funds, have spent more than $13 million trying to help elect Schimel, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. The winner will determine whether conservative or liberal justices control the court, with key battles looming over abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman accused Musk of “trying to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to secure a favorable ruling in his company’s lawsuit against the state.”

Just days before Musk’s groups started spending on the Supreme Court race, electric car manufacturer Tesla sued Wisconsin over its decision to not allow it to open dealerships. Musk is the CEO of Tesla and also the head of rocket ship manufacturer SpaceX. Tesla’s case could ultimately come before the Supreme Court.

“Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud,” Musk posted on X, just eight days before the lawsuit was filed in January.

Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for America PAC, referred to the post on X announcing the petition when asked for comment on Friday. A spokesperson for Schimel’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Crawford and her allies have made linking Schimel with Musk a key plank of their campaign. The Wisconsin Democratic Party released a new ad this week accusing Musk of trying to buy the seat for Schimel, a close ally of President Donald Trump.

Schimel earlier this week campaigned with Donald Trump Jr. at an event where the president’s son said electing Schimel was essential for protecting Trump’s agenda. America PAC has also been making that argument in flyers it’s handing out to Wisconsin voters.

Musk’s other group, Building America’s Future, said in a memo Thursday that to defeat Crawford it must “present Schimel as a pro-Trump conservative.”

The new petition says: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”

The petition, while designed to collect data on Wisconsin voters and energize them, is also in line with Trump’s agenda alleging that “activist” judges are illegally working against him. Trump’s administration is embroiled in several lawsuits related to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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The Republican-backed candidate in Wisconsin’s closely watched state Supreme Court race has resurfaced long-debunked concerns about voting fraud because of the late reporting of ballots in Milwaukee just two weeks before the April 1 election.

Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, spoke of the possibility of “bags of ballots” and fraud in Milwaukee during an interview Tuesday on conservative talk radio. Schimel faces Democratic-backed Susan Crawford in the April 1 election with majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court at stake.

Schimel, in an interview on WISN-AM, said his supporters need to “get our votes banked, make this too big to rig 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.”

Schimel said that happened in 2018 and in November “when (U.S. Senate candidate) Eric Hovde was ahead all night, and then all of a sudden, Milwaukee County changed that.”

Republicans and Democrats alike, along with state and Milwaukee election leaders, warned in the run-up to the November election that Milwaukee absentee ballots would be reported late and cause a huge influx of Democratic votes. Milwaukee is the state’s most populated city and is heavily Democratic. Its chief elections official was chosen with bipartisan support.

The reporting of those absentee ballots swung the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, fueling baseless conspiracy theories that the election had been stolen from President Donald Trump.

Milwaukee’s absentee ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on Election Day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual due to the sheer number that have to be counted and because state law does not allow them to be processed until polls open.

A bipartisan bill to allow for processing prior to Election Day died in the Republican-controlled Senate last year. Republicans, who have controlled the Legislature since 2011, routinely complain about slow processing in Milwaukee but have not passed bills to allow for speedier counting.

In 2018, the reporting of more than 47,000 absentee ballots after midnight put Democrat Tony Evers ahead of then-Gov. Scott Walker. Evers went on to win, and Walker criticized the late reporting, saying it blindsided him.

And in November, Hovde said he was “shocked” by the reporting of more than 108,000 ballots in Milwaukee early in the morning after the election in his defeat to Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

Schimel said in the radio interview he didn’t know what happened.

“I don’t know if there was fraud there,” Schimel said. “There’s no way for me to know that. All I know is this: We need to turn our votes out. That’s the best insulation we have against any potential fraud, is just get our people to the polls.”

Asked about his concerns during an appearance later Tuesday at the Milwaukee Rotary Club, Schimel said he brought up fraud because voters often ask him how to guarantee election integrity.

“I tell people, by following the rules,” Schimel said. “And then I tell them, ‘Here’s the best way to make sure your vote isn’t stolen: Go use it.’ That’s the answer.”

Yet despite his concerns, Schimel said: “I will always accept the results of the election.”

Crawford’s spokesperson, Derrick Honeyman, said Schimel was “dabbling in conspiracy theories to please his ally, Elon Musk, and it’s unbecoming of a judge and candidate for the state’s high court.”

Groups funded by billionaire Musk have contributed more than $11 million to help Schimel’s campaign. Crawford is backed by several billionaire Democrats, including philanthropist George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Schimel’s comments drew criticism from the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan coalition promoting truth about elections that includes former Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.

“There is no evidence of fraud in Milwaukee, but the failure of the state to allow early counting on absentee ballots before the close of polls feeds into conspiracy theories,” the group said in a statement.

The election comes as the court faces cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

The court is currently controlled 4-3 by liberals, but one of them is retiring, creating the battle for the majority.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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Some 400 to 600 Asian elephants are believed to remain living in the wild in Cambodia. Researchers said the study's findings underscore the potential of a "national stronghold" for the species.

(Image credit: The Flora & Fauna conservation/AP)

Abortion rights and the influence of donations from billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros took center stage in a sometimes testy debate Wednesday between candidates for the Wisconsin Supreme Court less than three weeks before the election.

The winner of the April 1 contest will determine whether conservative or liberal justices control Wisconsin’s highest court as it faces cases over abortion and reproductive rights, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

The race could be a litmus test early in President Donald Trump’s term in a key presidential swing state.

The race pits Republican-backed Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel, a former attorney general, against Democratic-backed Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford.

Here are highlights from the debate:

Abortion rights

A challenge to an 1849 state law that bans nearly all abortions is currently pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Schimel, who is supported by anti-abortion groups, said he believes the 1849 ban “was a validly passed law. I don’t believe it reflects the will of the people of Wisconsin today.”

Schimel said the future of abortion rights should not be up to the Supreme Court, but should instead be decided by voters.

Crawford declined to take a position on the pending abortion case.

But she said she was proud to have supported Planned Parenthood in a pair of abortion-related cases when she was an attorney in private practice. She also spoke against the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

“This is a critical issue in this race,” Crawford said. “My opponent has said he believes the 1849 law in Wisconsin is valid law and he’s trying to backpedal from that position now.”

Donations from billionaires Musk and Soros at issue

Crawford said that Musk, a close adviser to Trump, “has basically taken over Brad Schimel’s campaign.”

Groups funded by Musk have spent more than $10 million in support of Schimel on television ads and going door to door canvassing for his candidacy. One of those flyers says that Schimel would defend Trump’s agenda as a member of the court.

“This is unprecedented to see this kind of spending on a race,” Crawford said.

She said it was “no coincidence” that Musk started spending on the race days after his electric car company Tesla sued the state over its decision blocking it from opening dealerships in Wisconsin.

Schimel fired back, “If Elon Musk is trying to get some result in that lawsuit, he may be failing because I enforce the law and I respect the laws passed by the Legislature.”

Schimel said he has no control over outside donations, or the messages they spread.

He was asked, in light of the donations from Musk, if he would rule against Trump.

“If President Trump or anyone defies Wisconsin law and I end up with a case in front of me, I’ll hold them accountable as I would anybody in my courtroom,” Schimel said.

Donald Trump Jr. and political activist Charlie Kirk plan to co-host a town hall on Monday in Wisconsin that’s being billed as a get-out-the-vote effort for Schimel.

Crawford has benefited from donations from prominent national Democrats such as Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker who gave the state Democratic Party $1.5 million, which then donated it to Crawford’s campaign.

Schimel called Soros “a dangerous person to have an endorsement from.”

When asked what the difference was between the Musk and Soros donations, Crawford said, “I have never promised anything and that is the difference.”

Union rights

As an attorney, Crawford sued in an attempt to overturn the state’s law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers. That law, known as Act 10, was the centerpiece of former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure and made Wisconsin the center of the national debate over union rights.

A Dane County judge last year ruled that the bulk of the law was unconstitutional, and an appeal of that ruling is expected to come before the state Supreme Court.

Crawford said she “most likely” would recuse herself from a case challenging Act 10 if it were focused on the same provisions in the lawsuit she brought. But she said the current lawsuit is on different parts of the law.

When Schimel was attorney general, he said he would defend Act 10 and opposed having its restrictions also applied to police and firefighter unions, which were exempt from the law.

Schimel did not say in the debate whether he would recuse himself if a challenge to the law came before the court.

Voter ID

A measure on the April 1 ballot would enshrine Wisconsin’s voter ID law in the state constitution.

Schimel said he will vote for the amendment. Crawford, who sued to overturn the voter ID law, declined to say how she would vote on the amendment.

Congressional redistricting

A challenge to the state’s congressional district boundaries is expected to come before the court.

Crawford appeared at a briefing with donors earlier in the campaign that was billed in an email by organizers as a “chance to put two more House seats in play.”

Crawford said in the debate that she didn’t talk about redistricting during the call and the email sent by the organizers was “not an appropriate way to announce a judicial candidate.”

Schimel said it was hard for him to believe Crawford.

“We have to take my opponent’s word for it what happened on that phone call,” he said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court debate: Abortion, billionaires’ donations take center stage is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A Wisconsin appeals court ruled that disabled people are not allowed to receive absentee ballots by email, overturning a lower court's ruling less than three weeks before the April 1 election.

The post Wisconsin appeals court overturns ruling allowing for emailing ballots to disabled voters appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin’s version of the Elon Musk-led effort charged with making government run more efficiently struck a more collegial, bipartisan tone in its first meeting Tuesday, taking input from Democrats and hearing testimony from a broad array of government leaders.

Wisconsin is one of several states that have sought to mimic the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, run by billionaire Musk at the federal level. Others that have created similar groups include Florida, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana and New Hampshire.

The Wisconsin Assembly’s GOAT committee, which stands for Government Operations, Accountability and Transparency, is much more constrained in its mandate and powers than DOGE, which has broad authority given to it by President Donald Trump.

The Wisconsin committee was created by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, but three of its nine members are Democrats. There is no counterpart in the state Senate, which means any of its recommendations may face difficulty clearing both houses of the Legislature.

And the committee can’t unilaterally fire state workers or slash government spending. Broad actions like that require action by the full Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, in addition to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Evers has broken records for vetoing Republican-sponsored bills, making it highly unlikely he would go along with anything significant the GOAT committee may recommend.

Still, as a committee of the Legislature, it was able to solicit testimony Tuesday from numerous agency heads in Evers’ administration at its first meeting Tuesday. University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and Bob Atwell, the founder of Nicolet National Bank, also testified.

Republican Rep. Amanda Nedweski, chair of the committee, said the goal was to address “strong demand from the public” about what is happening with telework, state office use, whether public workers are being held accountable, what cybersecurity is in place and whether there is a cost savings.

Nedweski even cut off fellow Republican and committee vice chair Rep. Shae Sortwell when he began asking questions of a state education department official about spending related to DEI.

“We’re going to stay on topic today,” Nedweski said.

Sortwell sent numerous requests seeking information to the state’s largest cities and all 72 counties related to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in local governments across the state before the committee met, drawing criticism from Democratic members of the committee. Wisconsin Watch was the first to report on Sortwell’s efforts.

Vos, the Assembly speaker who created the GOAT committee, has said that its goal was to root out waste, fraud and abuse in state government. He attributed Sortwell’s inquiries to information gathering related to that goal.

DOGE claims credit for saving more than $100 billion at the federal level through mass firings, cancellations of contracts and grants, office closures and other cuts that have paralyzed entire agencies. Many of those claimed savings have turned out to be overstated or unproven.

DOGE’s work during the early stages of the Trump administration has drawn nearly two dozen lawsuits. Judges have raised questions in several cases about DOGE’s sweeping cost-cutting efforts, conducted with little public information about its staffing and operations.

Wisconsin’s DOGE-inspired effort gets off to more collegial start is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin election officials voted Friday to force Madison city workers to sit for depositions as they try to learn more about how nearly 200 absentee ballots in November’s election went uncounted.

The uncounted ballots in the state’s capital city didn’t affect any results, but the Wisconsin Elections Commission still launched an investigation in January to determine whether Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated state law or abused her discretion. She didn’t notify the elections commission of the uncounted ballots until December, almost a month and a half after the election and well after the results were certified on Nov. 29.

Commissioners astounded at failure to count ballots

The commission hasn’t made a decision yet on whether Witzel-Behl acted illegally or improperly, but commissioners appeared flabbergasted at the failure to count the ballots as they reviewed the investigation during a meeting Friday. Chair Ann Jacobs was particularly incensed with Witzel-Behl for not launching her own in-depth probe immediately.

“This feels like a complete lack of leadership and a refusal to be where the buck stops,” Jacobs said. “You don’t get to put your head in the sand for weeks. … I am genuinely shocked by this timeline.”

Don Millis said it was a “travesty” that the ballots were never counted. “You’re telling the world that these 193 people didn’t vote in what many thought was the most consequential election of our lifetime,” he said.

What did the commission decide to do?

The commission voted unanimously to authorize Jacobs and Millis to question Madison city employees in depositions — question-and-answer periods usually led by attorneys in which the subject gives sworn testimony. Jacobs said she would confer with Millis about who to question, but Witzel-Behl will likely be one of the subjects.

Madison city attorney Mike Haas, who was in the audience, told The Associated Press outside the meeting that he would not fight the depositions. “The city wants to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone else,” he said.

The commission also voted unanimously to send a message to clerks around the state informing them of the problems in Madison and warning them to scour polling places for any uncounted ballots during the upcoming April 1 election. Jacobs said she plans to call for more substantial changes to state election policy going into the 2026 elections after commissioners learn more about what happened in Madison.

The investigation’s findings so far

The city clerk’s office discovered 67 unprocessed absentee ballots in a courier bag that had been placed in a security cart on Nov. 12, the day election results were canvassed.

Witzel-Behl said she told two employees to notify the elections commission, but neither did. A third employee visited the Dane County Clerk’s Office in person to inform officials there of the discovery. That employee said he didn’t remember what the Dane County clerk said, but he recalled a “general sense” that the county would not want the ballots for the canvass.

The Dane County clerk, Scott McDonell, told the commission that he knew nothing of the uncounted ballots until they were reported in the media.

The clerk’s office discovered another 125 uncounted absentee ballots in a sealed courier bag in a supply tote on Dec. 2. Witzel-Behl said she didn’t inform county canvassers because the canvass was finished and, based on the county’s response to Nov. 12 discovery, she didn’t think the county would be interested.

The elections commission wasn’t notified of either discovery until Dec. 18. Witzel-Behl said the employees she asked to notify the commission waited until reconciliation was completed. Reconciliation is a routine process in which poll workers and elections officials ensure an election’s accuracy, including checking the number of ballots issued at the polls to the number of voters.

Holes in protocols

The investigators noted that Madison polling places’ absentee ballot logs didn’t list the number of courier bags for each ward, which would have told election inspectors how many bags to account for while processing ballots.

City election officials also had no procedures for confirming the number of absentee ballots received with the number counted. Witzel-Behl said that information was emailed to election inspectors the weekend before the election, but no documents provided the total number of ballots received.

If Witzel-Behl had looked through everything to check for courier bags and absentee ballot envelopes before the election was certified, the missing ballots could have been counted, investigators said.

Witzel-Behl also couldn’t explain why she didn’t contact the county or the state elections commission herself, investigators said.

Voters prep for lawsuit

Four Madison voters whose ballots weren’t counted filed claims Thursday for $175,000 each from the city and Dane County, the first step toward initiating a lawsuit.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin election officials to force depositions for Madison workers over uncounted ballots is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Four Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted in the November presidential election initiated a class-action lawsuit Thursday seeking $175,000 in damages each.

The voters were among 193 in Madison whose ballots were misplaced by the city clerk and not discovered until weeks after the election. Not counting the ballots didn’t affect the result of any races.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission investigated but did not determine whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl failed to comply with state law or abused her discretion.

She didn’t notify the elections commission of the problem until December, almost a month and a half after the election and after the results were certified on Nov. 29.

The goal is to reinforce and strengthen the right to vote in Wisconsin, said attorney Jeff Mandell, who is general counsel of Law Forward, which filed claims against the city of Madison and Dane County on Thursday.

“When people’s votes are not counted, when the right to vote is violated, our democracy is diminished,” Mandell said during a news conference announcing the action.

The four affected voters are seeking $175,000 each from the city of Madison and Dane County. That is above the $50,000 maximum that can be sought in class-action lawsuits against municipalities.

The lawsuit will argue that the cap is unconstitutional, the notice of claim said.

The number of affected voters who could join the lawsuit might grow, Mandell said. All of the voters whose ballots were not counted are named in the notice made public Thursday.

Madison takes election integrity seriously, the city’s spokesperson, Dylan Brogan, said in reaction. He noted that the clerk’s office apologized for the error both publicly and to each affected voter.

The clerk’s office has also taken steps to ensure the such a mistake won’t happen again and looked forward to additional guidance from the state elections commission, Brogan said. He declined to comment specifically on the lawsuit.

The state elections commission is scheduled to discuss its investigation into the uncounted ballots on Friday.

According to a summary of its findings, the clerk didn’t explain what exactly happened at the polling places, how the uncounted ballots went unnoticed all day on Election Day or how they were misplaced.

She also hasn’t said whether she spoke to the chief inspectors in the affected wards to find out what happened, making it difficult to develop guidelines to help election clerks throughout the state avoid similar issues, investigators said.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted in November election seek damages is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A seventh inmate has died at Wisconsin’s oldest prison, less than a year after the then-warden and multiple members of his staff were charged with misconduct and felony inmate abuse.

The state Department of Corrections offender website notes that 23-year-old Damien Evans died Tuesday at the Waupun Correctional Institution. The site does not offer any details. A Corrections spokesperson didn’t immediately return a message Wednesday. Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said in an email to The Associated Press that his agency is investigating Evans’ death but he had no information to share.

Online court records indicate Evans was sentenced in 2019 to seven years in prison for armed robbery and an additional two years to be served concurrently for bail jumping. Both cases were filed in Racine County.

Evans is the seventh Waupun inmate to have died in custody since June 2023. One killed himself, one died of a fentanyl overdose, one died of a stroke, and one died of dehydration and malnutrition. Another inmate, 66-year-old Jay Adkins, died in May. A sixth prisoner, 57-year-old Christopher McDonald, died in August.

The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has said McDonald’s death appears to have been a suicide. He was sentenced to 999 years after pleading no contest to being a party to first-degree intentional homicide in 1992. Schmidt didn’t immediately respond to follow-up emails Wednesday afternoon seeking updates on the investigations into Adkins’ and McDonald’s deaths.

Prosecutors last year charged warden Randall Hepp with misconduct and eight members of his staff with felony inmate abuse in connection with the deaths of two of the prisoners, Cameron Williams and Donald Maier. Three of the eight staff members also were charged with misconduct. Hepp subsequently retired.

According to criminal complaints, Williams died of a stroke in October 2023. His body went undiscovered for at least 12 hours.

Maier died of dehydration and malnutrition. He had severe mental health problems but either refused or wasn’t given his medication in the eight days leading up to his February 2024 death.

Federal investigators also have been looking into an alleged smuggling ring involving Waupun prison employees. Gov. Tony Evers office has said the probe has resulted in the suspension of nearly a dozen employees. A former prison worker pleaded guilty in September to smuggling cellphones, tobacco and drugs into the facility in exchange for money.

Waupun inmates have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging mistreatment and a lack of health care.

The maximum-security prison was built in the 1850s. Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have been calling for years to close it. Concerns about local job losses and the cost of building a replacement prison have stymied progress.

Evers, a Democrat, last month proposed a multitiered, $500 million plan for the state’s prisons that includes converting Waupun to a medium-security center focused on job training for inmates.

This story has been updated to correct that Evans is the seventh inmate to die at Waupun Correctional Institution since June 2023, instead of the sixth inmate, and to correct that one inmate killed himself, not two.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Seventh inmate dies at Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Institution is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

An audit of the November election won by President Donald Trump in swing-state Wisconsin found that not a single vote was counted incorrectly, altered or missed by tabulating machines.

The audit also found no evidence that any voting machine or software had been hacked or otherwise tampered with. The Wisconsin Elections Commission released the audit’s findings last week and is scheduled to discuss them Friday.

Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris in Wisconsin by just over 29,000 votes.

In 2020, when Trump lost to Joe Biden by just under 21,000 votes, Trump and his supporters alleged there was widespread fraud in Wisconsin. But two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review and multiple state and federal lawsuits did not support the claims.

Trump and his allies have not made similar accusations about wrongdoing in the 2024 election that he won.

Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s top elections official, said in a memo that the audit shows the public how effectively elections are run and also works to “dispel any misinformation or disinformation about the security of electronic voting systems.”

The post-election audit is required under state law and has been done after each general election since 2006. Local elections officials in 336 randomly selected municipalities across the state hand-counted 327,230 ballots as part of the 2024 audit. That is nearly 10% of all Wisconsin ballots cast in the 2024 election and the largest post-election audit ever undertaken in the state.

The only errors found during the audit were made by people, not the vote-counting machines. And only five human errors were detected, resulting in an error rate of just 0.0000009%, according to the report.

“My hope is that this reassures persons on all sides of the political aisle that voting tabulators are doing their jobs accurately,” Ann Jacobs, chair of the elections commission, said in a post last week on the social media platform X. “We all lament when our candidate loses, but in WI, it wasn’t because someone hacked the machines. The other guy just got more votes.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday decried what he called “irresponsible decisions in Washington” and “needless chaos,” saying his new two-year spending proposal was designed to prepare for drastic cuts from the federal government.

Evers released his budget as he considers seeking a third term in the battleground state that President Donald Trump narrowly won in November.

Evers’ budget is more of a wish list than a roadmap of what will actually become law. Republicans who control the Legislature promised to kill most of his proposals, as they have done on his three previous budgets, before passing it later this year.

“With so much happening in Washington that’s reckless and partisan, in Wisconsin we must continue our work to be reasonable and pragmatic,” Evers told the Legislature and other guests.

He urged lawmakers to leave $500 million available to respond to situations caused by federal decisions.

Here are highlights of Evers’ $119 billion two-year budget, which would increase spending by more than 20%:

Pushing back against Trump on tariffs, higher education

Evers said that Trump’s tariffs — or import taxes — could spark trade wars with Wisconsin’s largest exporters and hurt the state’s $116 billion agriculture industry.

Trump has imposed 10% tariffs on China and threatened, then delayed for 30 days, 25% taxes on goods from Canada and Mexico.

“I’m really concerned President Trump’s 25% tariff tax will not only hurt our farmers, ag industries and our economy but that it will cause prices to go up on everything from gas to groceries,” Evers said.

Evers’ plan calls for creating a new agriculture economist position in state government to help farmers navigate market disruptions caused by tariffs. He’s also calling for increasing funding to help farmers find and increase markets for their products.

Tariffs are just one issue where Evers has fought back against the Trump agenda.

Evers also previously called for a bipartisan solution to immigration, while criticizing Trump’s move to deport people in the country illegally.

And Evers proposed the highest increase in Universities of Wisconsin funding in state history, citing concerns about federal cuts.

“Politicians in Washington don’t know a darn thing about what’s going on at campuses across Wisconsin,” Evers said. “They don’t know how important our UW System has been to our state’s success or how important it is for our future.”

Evers taps into the Republican priority of cutting taxes

Evers has clashed with Republicans over tax cuts in the past, gutting a $3.5 billion tax cut in the last budget, while approving a $2 billion tax cut in 2021. In his new budget, Evers called for cutting a variety of income, sales and property taxes by nearly $2 billion, while increasing the income tax on millionaires by $1.3 billion.

Republicans will almost certainly kill any tax increase. They have said they want to use the state’s entire $4 billion surplus on cutting taxes.

The Evers plan includes eliminating the income tax on tips and doing away with the sales tax on over-the-counter medications. He also proposed reducing income taxes for the middle class and creating a new incentive for local governments not to increase property taxes.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu discounted Evers’ tax cuts as “gimmicky,” called the budget “irresponsible” and said the GOP will deliver an alternative broad tax cut proposal soon.

Fighting water pollution caused by ‘forever chemicals’

Evers and Republicans have long been at odds over how to battle PFAS pollution, even as numerous Wisconsin communities struggle with contamination from the so-called forever chemicals and are forced to drink only bottled water.

Evers is calling for spending $145 million to fight the pollution through additional testing to find the pollution and researching ways to combat it.

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man-made chemicals that don’t easily break down in nature. The chemicals have been linked to health problems including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease and have been shown to make vaccines less effective.

Republicans unlikely to go along with Democratic plan

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said most of Evers’ plan was “dead on arrival” and said the GOP would start from scratch. Republicans have repeatedly rejected his calls to expand Medicaid and legalize recreational marijuana. They are also unlikely to increase funding for K-12 schools and the Universities of Wisconsin budget as much as Evers wants.

Evers also proposed making Wisconsin the first state in the country to audit insurance companies over denying health care claims.

However, Republicans did not summarily reject another major Evers proposal to close the 127-year-old prison in Green Bay as part of a massive overhaul of the state’s correctional system.

Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers calls for tax cuts, pushback on Trump’s tariffs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin’s Democratic-backed incumbent state schools leader will face a Republican-supported challenger after both advanced in Tuesday’s three-person primary.

The winner in the April 1 general election will guide education policy in the battleground state during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Jill Underly, currently serving her first term as state superintendent, and Brittany Kinser, an advocate of the state’s private school voucher program and public charter schools, both advanced in Tuesday’s primary. Jeff Wright, a rural school superintendent, was eliminated.

Underly was first elected to head the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction in 2021 with the support of Democrats and teachers unions. She has tried to position herself as the champion for public schools.

She said her win shows that voters “love their public schools.”

“They are also committed to making sure their public schools stay viable and every kid has these opportunities to be successful,” Underly said.

She was endorsed by the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which also has given her campaign $106,000 this month, and a host of Democratic officeholders.

But the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the statewide teachers union, did not endorse a candidate in the primary. The political action committee for the union had recommended Wright be endorsed.

Wright, a two-time Democratic candidate for state Assembly, tried to cut into Underly’s base of support. He won the endorsements of the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators and the Middleton-Cross Plains teachers union.

Kinser, an education consultant, invited Wright’s backers who were unhappy with Underly’s leadership to back her.

“I’m welcoming Jeff and his supporters to come and join our campaign so we can restore high standards for all children in Wisconsin,” Kinser said.

Wright is going to “take some time to think” before he endorses anyone, his spokesperson Tyler Smith said.

Kinser is backed by Republicans, including the state party, which has given her campaign $200,000 so far.

Underly accused Kinser of being “focused on expanding vouchers, and these policies put our public schools in a dangerous race to the bottom.”

Kinser countered that her campaign is focused on bolstering achievement for all students, no matter what type of school they attend.

Wisconsin is the only state where voters elect the top education official but there is no state board of education. That gives the person who runs the Department of Public Instruction broad authority to oversee education policy, which includes dispersing money to schools and managing teacher licensing.

Whoever wins will have to manage Wisconsin’s relationship with the Trump administration as it seeks to eliminate the federal Department of Education, which supports roughly 14% of public school budgets nationwide with an annual budget of $79 billion.

CLARIFICATION: The Associated Press updated this story to make clear that Kinser is an advocate for the state’s private school voucher program and public charter schools.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Incumbent Wisconsin school leader Jill Underly, GOP-backed challenger Brittany Kinser advance in primary is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The reasons for the beachings are unclear. Reasons could include disorientation caused by loud noises, illness, old age, injury, fleeing predators and severe weather.

(Image credit: Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania)

A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Republican Party official lacked the standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the use of a mobile voting van in 2022.

The lawsuit sought to ban the use of mobile voting vans in any future election in the presidential battleground state. The court did not address the legality of mobile voting sites in its ruling, meaning mobile voting vans could be used in future elections.

A single van has been used only once — in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others argue that nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans. City officials said that in light of the state Supreme Court ruling, they plan to use the van again during the state’s elections in April, calling it an important tool for ensuring all voters can cast their ballots.

The court did not rule on the merits of the case. Instead, it ruled 4-3 to dismiss the case, with four liberal justices in the majority and three conservative justices dissenting.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Racine County voter who brought the lawsuit, the county’s Republican Party chairman, Ken Brown, was not “aggrieved” under state law and therefore was not permitted to sue.

Brown filed a complaint the day after the August 2022 primary with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, arguing that the van violated state law. He argued that it was only sent to Democratic-leaning areas in the city in an illegal move to bolster turnout.

Racine city Clerk Tara McMenamin disputed those accusations, saying it shows a misunderstanding of the city’s voting wards, which traditionally skew Democratic.

The elections commission dismissed the complaint four days before the 2022 election, saying there was no probable cause shown to believe the law had been broken. Brown sued.

Justice Rebecca Bradley, who wrote the dissent in Tuesday’s ruling, said the ruling means that the elections commission’s decision will be left unreviewed by courts “and the People are left, once again, without a decision on fundamental issues of election law enacted to protect their sacred right to vote.”

Bradley said the ruling will make it more difficult for any voter who believes election law has been violated to bring lawsuits.

“The majority, once again, refashions the law to its own liking as it shuts the doors of the courthouse to voters,” Bradley wrote.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative law firm, represented Brown. The firm’s deputy counsel, Lucas Vebber, said in a statement that the ruling prevents Wisconsin residents from holding government officials accountable.

Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, praised the ruling, saying the decision means that “in-person absentee voting will remain widely available and won’t be unnecessarily restricted.”

Republicans in this case argued that it violates state law to operate mobile voting sites, that their repeated use would increase the chances of voter fraud, and that the one in Racine was used to bolster Democratic turnout.

Wisconsin law prohibits locating any early voting site in a place that gives an advantage to any political party. There are other limitations on early voting sites, including a requirement that they be “as near as practicable” to the clerk’s office.

For the 2022 election, McMenamin, the Racine clerk, and the city had a goal of making voting as accessible to as many voters as possible.

Racine purchased its van with grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Republicans have been critical of the grants, calling the money “Zuckerbucks” that they say was used to tilt turnout in Democratic areas.

Wisconsin voters last year approved a Republican-backed constitutional amendment banning the use of private money to help run elections.

The van was used only to facilitate early in-person voting during the two weeks prior to that 2022 election, McMenamin said. It traveled for two weeks across the city, allowing voters to cast in-person absentee ballots in 21 locations.

A Racine County Circuit Court judge sided with Republicans, ruling that state election laws do not allow for the use of mobile voting sites.

The elections commission argued on appeal that Brown did not have standing to seek an appeal in court of the commission’s decision. The law allows for anyone who is “aggrieved” by a commission order to seek judicial review, but the state Supreme Court said Brown failed to show how he suffered because of the commission’s decision.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Republican had no right to bring lawsuit challenging mobile voting is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.