A Madison clerk committed “profound failure” that resulted in nearly 200 ballots going uncounted in last November’s election, and she displayed an “astonishing” lack of urgency in reporting and rectifying her mistakes, an investigation by the Wisconsin Elections Commission has found.
Bill Berrien is the second Republican to officially launch his campaign for governor and criticized Gov. Tony Evers in his ad for wanting to raise taxes, his actions handling the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, vetoing a bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating on sports teams in an ad posted to YouTube and X. (Screenshot from campaign ad)
Bill Berrien, a Republican businessman and former Navy SEAL, officially launched his campaign for governor Wednesday, comparing himself to President Donald Trump and declaring his support for cutting taxes, deportation efforts and barring transgender girls from locker rooms.
Berrien is the second Republican to officially launch his campaign for governor. He joins Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann who announced in May and has already been on the road pitching himself to fellow Republicans. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany has also been considering a run for the office.
“Just like President Trump, I’m a political outsider and a businessman. It’s time that we fire the bureaucrats and hire a businessman to fix the problems and take our state back,” Berrien said in a statement. It’s a shift for Berrien, who supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican presidential primary and donated over $30,000 to her campaign — a track record that led to pushback against his candidacy from some Wisconsin conservatives.
In an ad, Berrien spoke over a clip of Trump pumping his fist after last year’s assassination attempt.
“A Navy SEAL is never out of the fight,” Berrien said as the clip played. “We’ve seen that fighting spirit from President Trump. It’s the same fight it takes to run a Wisconsin manufacturing business.”
“I’ll shake up Madison like he’s shaking up D.C.,” Berrien added.
For the last 13 years, Berrien has worked as the owner and chief executive officer of Pindel Global Precision Inc. and Liberty Precision New Berlin contract manufacturers that make machined parts for an array of industries including aerospace, agricultural products, medical and firearms.
A December 2024 report from WUWM details Berrien’s recent role as vice chair of the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council, a collaboration of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, that seeks to push for more weapons production in Wisconsin. At the time, Berrien said he wanted to figure out how to encourage companies to supply directly to the Department of Defense and also connect businesses with “defense primes” — companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
Prior to working in the private sector, Berrien served as a Navy SEAL for nine years. He currently lives in Whitefish Bay with his wife and is the father of three.
The Republican hopefuls have bashed incumbent Gov. Tony Evers, who hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for a third term. Evers said he would decide after the state budget process, which was completed last week, and this week said at a visit to Milwaukee to highlight the budget that he expects to announce a decision in a “couple weeks.”
Berrien criticized Evers in his ad for wanting to raise taxes, his actions handling the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, vetoing a bill that would have banned transgender girls from participating on sports teams and locker rooms that align with their gender identity and for using the term “inseminated person” in a section of his budget proposal on artificial insemination.
Berrien also criticized the movement of manufacturing jobs to China by “globalists” and took a swipe at “career politicians.”
“Enough,” Berrien said. “I will cut taxes, increase wages and make Wisconsin the manufacturing powerhouse to the world, again.” He also said he would use law enforcement to keep “criminal illegal” immigrants out of Wisconsin and “keep boys out of our daughters’ sports and locker rooms.”
“President Trump is taking back Washington for the American people,” Berrien said at the end of the ad — naming Trump for the fourth time during the 99 second spot. “Now it’s time to take back our state.”
Berrien launched his “Never Out of The Fight” PAC in April to help “further” conservative causes and push Republican candidates to “get back to winning.” It reported raising $1.2 million in its first three months, according to WisPolitics.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Devin Remiker criticized Berrien, saying he was “rich enough to buy himself some attention and clueless enough to think that’s going to work — just like Elon Musk did this past April only to see his political career end.”
The state party is “already building on our playbook that helped take down Brad Schimel, Tim Michels, and Eric Hovde,” Remiker said. “We have no doubt we’ll be in an even stronger position to defeat whoever Trump hand picks to do his bidding in the primary and emerges as the nominee.”
Jacobson launched her campaign outside an elementary school in Ridgeway that was closed after the Dodgeville school district combined two elementary schools into one. (Photo courtesy Wisconsin State Senate Democratic Committee)
With the Wisconsin state budget completed just last week, Senate Democrats are gearing up for 2026 elections and their shot at a majority. Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon), surrounded by a group of current Democratic senators, launched her campaign Monday for Senate District 17, currently represented by one of the Senate Republicans central to shaping Wisconsin’s budget.
There are about 16 months until November 2026 when half of the state Senate, the entire state Assembly and the governor’s seat will all be up for election. This will be the first time the new legislative maps adopted in 2024 will be in place for the 17 odd-numbered Senate seats.
Democrats gained four seats in the Senate in 2024 — breaking the GOP supermajority and leaving Senate Republicans with a margin of 18-15 majority. They will need to win at least two seats if they are to win the majority for the first time in more than 15 years.
Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), the co-chair of the powerful budget committee, is the incumbent, having first been elected to the seat in 2014 after serving two terms in the Assembly.
Lisa White, a Democrat who runs an interior painting business, is also running for the seat.
Jacobson, who is serving her second term in the Assembly, told the Wisconsin Examiner that she is challenging Marklein in part because he hasn’t been listening.
Marklein won the district with 60% of the vote in 2022, but Senate District 17 changed considerably under the new maps. According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the district leaned Democratic by 1 percentage point in the 2024 presidential election and by over 4 percentage points in the 2024 U.S. Senate race.
“The biggest thing that I see about this district is that people really want somebody who’s going to represent what they’re fighting for, what they need and listen to them, and even listen to them when they don’t necessarily agree,” Jacobson said. “They’ve been not receiving that in their current state senator.”
Jacobson cited a report in the Monroe Times of a Marklein listening session in Belleville in January — coincidentally on the same day that Jacobson was holding one there.
“There was a list of rules of what would and will not be happening in that listening session,” Jacobson said. “That, to me, is the starkest example of what it means to listen to your community, because I was inviting anybody… there are no rules. I’m open to having a conversation with anybody at any time.”
Marklein’s notice told residents that it was “designed for the senator to receive input and ideas about issues facing residents in the 17th Senate District” and he didn’t “plan to answer questions, debate ideas, challenge the ideas, or otherwise comment because he is seeking to hear every point-of-view equally.” The notice said that “the goal is for every attendee to feel comfortable sharing their input.” It also advised those attending that their comments might be subject to a time limit.
Jacobson launched her campaign outside an elementary school in Ridgeway that was closed after the Dodgeville school district combined two elementary schools into one. She called Marklein a “classic politician” who she said has “failed” the Senate district.
“Our district has time and again been forced into referenda to fund our schools because Howard Marklein has chosen power over people,” Jacobson said. “He has chosen ideology over voting for the needs of the district. That is irresponsible governing.”
Jacobson first ran for the state Assembly for an open seat in 2021 and said her service on the Oregon village board showed her how local government intersects with state government and why it’s important to shape the latter.
Her announcement came less than a week after lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers completed the state budget. The Republicans’ narrower Senate majority led to a new dynamic during the budget process. With Democratic votes necessary to pass the bill, Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) became involved in budget negotiations.
Hesselbein joined Jacobson at her campaign announcement Monday, along with Sens. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit), Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) and Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska).
Jacobson has been fighting for public school funding, Hesselbein said. “In the Senate, she will dedicate herself to lowering costs for your families, to creating a bright future for your children, and making our state stronger every day,” Hesselbein said. “We are excited and proud to be standing behind her in this campaign and we look forward to her joining us and helping us win a Democratic majority.”
Jacobson voted against the budget, joining 37 other Assembly Democrats.
Democrats credited the new maps and the Senate’s closer margins for the budget agreement, which included an increase in funding for special education, the University of Wisconsin system and child care. The bill passed thanks to five Senate Democratic votes, although a recurring theme among Democrats whether they voted for or against the budget, including Jacobson, was that it wasn’t perfect.
Jacobson said that was part of the reason she launched her campaign.
“I was hoping under these new maps — with even more voices talking so loudly about the fact that they need state assistance when it comes to affording child care, they need more funding for our schools, they need real help on the everyday costs that are facing Wisconsinites — that under this new more competitive district that would be represented in the state budget,” she said. “What we’re seeing is that the cycle of referendums is not going to end under this budget… and that was a missed opportunity in this budget.”
During the final discussions over the budget, Marklein emphasized that the document was a “compromise” between Republicans and Democrats while highlighting items affecting his district, such as funding for the UW system that would help the Platteville campus. Marklein did not respond to an email from the Wisconsin Examiner on Monday asking about his 2026 plans and his response to Democrats targeting SD 17.
Jacobson said she doesn’t view Marklein’s long tenure as a state lawmaker as a challenge. She said she is more concerned with the size of the Southwest Wisconsin Senate district, which encompasses Iowa, Lafayette, Green, Crawford and Grant counties as well as parts of Dane County.
“It’s a big district, but the benefit of that is that it’s filled with these amazing rural communities that when people think about Wisconsin that’s what they think of…,” Jacobson said. “Sure [Sen. Marklein has] been an incumbent for a while, but has he been out? How much is he doing outside of walking a parade to really listen to the district?”
Jacobson, a mother of three children, said public education funding will be one of her top issues, though she is also more concerned about hearing from others. She said she has been traveling the district over the last few weeks and hearing an array of concerns from residents.
“They’re concerned that they’re going to have to have more referenda because of the lack of school funding to increase their property taxes even more,” Jacobson said. “They’re concerned that without meaningful work or support from the state — our health care system in that area… seven hospitals… multiple clinics — those are going to potentially be in jeopardy.”
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the number of seats Democrats need to gain in 2026 to win a Senate majority.
When Madison residents went to vote in a special election this month, they didn’t have to stand in line according to their last name or wait for poll workers to flip through paper lists to find their names. For the first time, election officials there used electronic pollbooks to check voters in, allowing them to search for voters’ names and collect signatures on digital pads.
They could also use the e-pollbooks to process absentee ballots, register new voters and issue voter numbers, just as they did with paper poll books, but with less chance of error.
The pilot program in the state capital offered a glimpse of both the technology’s potential — and its current limitations. Poll workers praised the state’s in-house e-pollbook system, known as Badger Book, for its speed and accuracy. But its high costs, limited vendor options, and a lack of state funding for support staff have stalled broader adoption, especially in large cities.
Now, with the Wisconsin Elections Commission beginning to evaluate commercial e-pollbook vendors, clerks are hoping new options might offer a more sustainable path forward.
Deploying the state’s system in a city as large as Madison is “just not practical at this point,” Mike Haas, Madison’s interim clerk, said after the June 17 county supervisor election. “We looked at it more as an opportunity to get familiar with the technology.”
Funding is just one challenge. Adopting the e-pollbook in a city like Madison could cost well over $1 million. While the software is free, the hardware for running it — including a tablet-like device and a printer — costs well over $2,000 for each station, and each of the city’s 120 polling locations would each likely need several. Milwaukee, with over 180 sites, would face even higher costs. And in small, cash-strapped towns, setting aside even $10,000 for e-pollbooks can be unrealistic.
Another challenge is access to support. Badger Book is the only approved e-pollbook in the state, and it’s designed and maintained by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
While any municipality can use it, commission staffers would likely be limited in their ability to provide Election Day support for a city as big as Madison or Milwaukee, unless they got more funding from the Legislature.
Larger jurisdictions using Badger Books would have to manage some of the logistics and troubleshooting on their own, said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic appointee and current chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
“I would love it if we could have the staff sufficient to have a little Badger Book division and be able to service Badger Books statewide,” she said.. “That would be terrific. That’s not our current reality.”
Sun Prairie confronts the costs of an upgrade
Sun Prairie, northeast of Madison, was the first municipality in Wisconsin to adopt the e-pollbook after the technology rolled out in 2018. Now around 400 out of the state’s 1,850 municipalities use it. It’s an excellent tool that saves hours of staff time, said Sun Prairie Clerk Elena Hilby, but the city’s hardware is aging and beginning to slow down, and as long as Badger Book is the only system available, she worries about the cost of updating it.
Currently, only one company in Wisconsin — PDS, A Converge Company, which is based in Oconomowoc — is authorized to replace the hardware used to operate the e-pollbooks.
When Hilby asked the company for a quote on a machine in January, the cost was $2,011, she said. In April, she said, it was $2,441, an increase that the company attributed to tariffs.
“We are literally fish in a barrel,” Hilby said. “They can make it cost whatever they want, and we’re stuck, because they’re the only ones we can use.”
And she doesn’t want the Badger Books the way they are. “I want WEC to give me other options,” she said.
Commercial alternatives may not be much cheaper, said Ben Adida, founder and executive director of election technology vendor VotingWorks. And either way, the investment can be worth it, Adida said, because e-pollbooks reduce staff time. That’s especially true at the end of the night when poll workers upload voter data, a task that’s “incredibly tedious” without e-pollbooks, he said.
One advantage of an in-house system is that it can be tailored to a particular state or jurisdiction, said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer for the Election Center, a nonprofit group representing election officials. Commercial products start off with a basic menu of services, and customizing them can require more time and money, she said.
The disadvantage is that the extent of state support depends on government funding. Commercial options can fluctuate in their ability to support clients, she said, but they aren’t as “susceptible to the whims of legislators and appropriators.”
Commercial alternatives could be coming
The Wisconsin Elections Commission is looking at how to give local election officials access to more options and support.
On May 2, the commission invited clerks to join a committee to evaluate commercial e-pollbook options, working with vendors and the general public. The topic is likely to be discussed at the commission’s July meeting. The commission “looks forward to addressing the committee’s feedback,” said WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
The committee won’t assess Badger Books, according to the email sent to clerks, and its work “does not mean that Badger Books will be discontinued.” Other states, the email noted, have multiple approved pollbook models.
The Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and Wisconsin County Clerks Association have also formed a task force on the future of e-pollbooks, said Hilby, who’s co-leading the group with Portage County Clerk Maria Davis. They aim to compile a list of clerk concerns and expectations by July.
Can commercial options match Badger Book on security?
Jacobs, the election commission chair, said an advantage of Badger Book is that the commission has access and control over the product, which makes it more secure. It never connects to the internet, unlike many of the added features in commercial products that clerks have said they’d like to have, she said.
“I’m skeptical that a commercial product, especially those that connect to the internet, would be of sufficient security and usability for us to allow for them to be used within our system,” she said.
Haas, Madison’s interim clerk and the former Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator, said the commission also opted for an in-house system because the state’s elections are decentralized and have unique laws. The initial idea, he said, was to see how the in-house system works before considering whether private vendors could move into the market.
While the pilot project worked out, he said, Madison is unlikely to implement e-pollbooks anytime soon. In the long term, he said, the decision will depend on whether the city council wants to pay for it, and whether the election commission can provide enough support.
“Based on what I’ve heard from the staff in working with the technology, I think they would be happy to be able to implement it,” Haas said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.
The decision, made without explanation from the court, is a setback for Democrats who had hoped for new, friendlier district boundary lines in Wisconsin as they attempt to win back control of the House next year.
Wisconsin Republicans want to require that all proposed constitutional amendments come with a plain-language explanation, a move that they say would help voters better understand complex ballot questions.
The proposal has drawn broad support. But some lawmakers are concerned about whether the measure as proposed would leave the interpretation of ballot questions vulnerable to partisanship. And even some supporters say the bill should have more specific standards for what constitutes plain language.
In its current version, the bill calls for the Legislature to pass a plain-language explanation along with any proposed constitutional amendment. The explanation would be drafted by the Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan legislative agency that helps draft bills, but legislators would be able to revise it. Neither the explanation nor the amendment would be subject to a governor’s veto.
The proposal has the support of a wide swath of voting organizations: The ACLU of Wisconsin, the city of Madison, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, All Voting Is Local Action and Common Cause in Wisconsin are all registered in support of it. No group has registered in opposition.
“Most of our voters do not have law degrees to interpret many of these questions,” Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, the bill’s author, said at a June 3 public hearing before the Assembly elections committee. “It leaves individuals unprepared to really make an informed decision.”
But Republicans and Democrats expressed concern at the hearing that the bill, as written, gives too much control of the process to the legislative majority.
O’Connor maintained that crafting the explanation should ultimately be the Legislature’s responsibility. He didn’t respond to Votebeat’s request for comment.
Proposal leaves plain language undefined
States that require plain-language summaries of their ballot proposals vary widely in how they craft them. Oregon uses a demographically representative citizen panel. Arizona leaves it to a legislative council controlled by the majority party.
The drafting process is often contentious, and litigation over fairness is common, said Thomas Collins, executive director of the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
There’s no gold standard for laws on plain-language explanations, said Michael Blasie, an expert on the subject and an associate professor at Seattle University School of Law. Regardless of who writes the explanation, he said, the key is user testing: giving drafts to readers and checking whether they understand them as intended.
The Wisconsin bill doesn’t require that. Without testing and feedback, Blasie said, the bill is a positive step but won’t have a meaningful impact unless it’s followed by further reforms.
There are about 1,100 plain-language laws across the country at the federal, state and local levels, including in Wisconsin, Blasie said. Some of them broadly require jurisdictions to provide plain-language explanations of proposals; others are more specific, defining criteria like sentence length or prohibiting passive voice.
The Wisconsin proposal falls into the former category, requiring plain language without defining what that means, or how to enforce it. That’s a common approach and allows for more flexibility, Blasie said.
“You can adapt as the needs of voters in Wisconsin change,” he said.
“The downside is drafters really have no specific guidance and no way of knowing whether they have met that standard,” he said.
One of the groups that registered in support of the proposal, Disability Rights Wisconsin, urged lawmakers to include a standard to determine what constitutes plain language.
Concerns over changing who writes explanations
Under current law, it’s up to the Wisconsin attorney general’s office to write the explanations of constitutional amendment proposals voters see on their ballots. This bill would eliminate that role.
State Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome, vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, said the explanations that come out of the attorney general’s office are often confusing. Some are written at a 12th grade reading level, whereas plain-language guidelines typically call for writing them at an eighth grade level.
Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli, a Democrat, acknowledges that the current system needs improvement. But she said she doesn’t support the bill as written, arguing that a partisan body like the Legislature can’t produce what should be a neutral explanation for voters.
“It’s almost certain that whoever is in the majority trying to pass this legislation is going to craft it in a way that leans towards the outcome that they’re desiring, Republican or Democrat,” she said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Remiker told the convention after he won. “And I want to figure out how we can all work together to best support Democrats in every corner of this state.” (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin met over the weekend at a waterpark resort in the Wisconsin Dells to kickstart its work to compete for crucial seats in government in 2026. Delegates elected Devin Remiker as chair, a senior advisor to the party who was endorsed by outgoing party chair Ben Wikler. In sessions throughout the weekend state Democrats considered what needs to change for the party to succeed and speakers talked about what Democrats would do if they won a trifecta in state government.
Remiker chosen in three-way race
The state party elected Remiker over Joe Zepecki and William Garcia in the race for chair Sunday afternoon. The party used ranked choice voting to choose the winner after delegates watched a video on how the process worked on Saturday evening.Voting took place the next day.
Remiker received 485 votes, including 437 first choice votes and 48 second choice votes, putting him over the other candidates. Zepecki, a communications professional, received 415 votes, including 330 first choice and 85 second choice votes and Garcia, chair of the La Crosse County party, received 139 first choice votes, resulting in his elimination in the first round.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Remiker told the convention after he won. “And I want to figure out how we can all work together to best support Democrats in every corner of this state.”
Remiker, a 32-year-old Two Rivers native, will succeed Chair Ben Wikler, who has led the party since 2019 and decided not to run for another term. He most recently served as a senior advisor for the state party, though he’s been involved with the party in various capacities, including as executive director for a time, since 2018.
Remiker said he was glad that the party was unifying around a vision to build on what works, which will allow the party to “hit the gas” into 2026 when elections for the state Supreme Court, governor, Congress and the state Legislature take place.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin considered what a trifecta in state government would look like during the convention. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“There is one thing that we can do, and it is elect Democrats at all levels to send a message to Donald Trump and Republicans in this state that we will not stand for their divide and conquer politics any longer. We will win big,” Remiker said. “We are just 18 months away from a trifecta and 18 months away from history. Let’s hit the gas, and when we win, it won’t be an accident. It will be because we put in the work.”
The chair campaign over the weekend
The candidates for chair spent the weekend working to make their case for the position, including addressing the convention in speeches Saturday evening. During his speech, Remiker said questions about whether Democrats are fighting back and why the party is broken don’t apply in Wisconsin.
“In Wisconsin, the Democratic party works,” Remiker told the convention. “We don’t need to fix what isn’t broken. We need to build on what works and, folks, we know what works. Success isn’t an accident: year-round organizing, showing up everywhere, fighting tooth and nail in every election — spring, fall, special — taking nothing for granted. Now is not the time to reset. Now is the time to double down.”
Remiker had the support of out-going chair Wikler, who spoke on his behalf as well. During his campaign he also garnered the support of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and the Democratic leaders of the state Senate and Assembly.
“It was Devin who made the plan to fight back when Elon Musk came to town. It was Devin who figured out how to make it backfire,” Wikler told the convention on Saturday evening. “He’s brilliant. He’s an organizer. He’s kind. He gets rural. He gets grassroots, and he knows how to fight in a moment when we need a fighter.”
Remiker told reporters Sunday afternoon that he would have won the election even without Wikler’s support.
“Even prior to that, I had tons of endorsement and public support from around the state from elected officials, party leadership,” Remiker said. “It was just a little added boost as we had it into the final shot.”
Garcia had made his case to the convention that the party would win a trifecta in 2026 and he would help do that by strengthening the county parties and ensuring they have the tools, resources, information, and training they need to succeed.
“County parties need the support to welcome new members and organize new voters to the Democratic side,” Garcia said. “Building local parties means talking to voters everywhere and winning votes everywhere… The path to victory is making our community stronger.”
Garcia also emphasized that he would reach out to young people, a message that resonated with some.
Jasmine Puls, a senior at UW-Green Bay, said Garcia became her top pick because of that. She said he appeared to be meeting with everyone during his Saturday evening event and told her that he would be willing to visit her campus. Each candidate had a “hospitality suite” after the close of business on Saturday where they could speak with delegates.
Puls said Garcia felt “like he’s the more personal choice, especially for youth voters,” Puls said. She also noted that Remiker’s event felt a little “show-outy.”
“There was like prime rib and everything was like extreme, and we were getting free cups, free drinks, free everything,” Puls said. “It was huge, but it felt like a show and it just didn’t seem real and authentic.”
Asked about how much he spent on his campaign and about the food served at his campaign events, which also included escargot, Remiker said he “spent enough to win” and said the food was part of Wisconsin tradition.
“I was delighted to have a Wisconsin supper club theme at my hospitality suite last night. We did have prime rib, but it was a Saturday night, and that’s a Saturday night special here in Wisconsin,” Remiker said. “I had a ton of fun. It was a great campaign. I’m really proud of the campaign.”
Devin Remiker speaking with delegates ahead of the chair vote on Sunday. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Zepecki, meanwhile, ran a campaign that focused on helping make changes to the party that could help seal gaps he identified as a problem. As he spoke to the convention, he said Wikler has done a great job strengthening the party, but Trump and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s election victories in Wisconsin are proof the party has work to do.
Brenda Vinall-Mogel, a member of the Burnett County party, told the Examiner that Zepecki showing up in her county helped make him her top choice for chair. Zepecki told the convention on Saturday that he traveled 5,000 miles across Wisconsin to listen to people and to make the case for his candidacy. “We should actually be out in the bars, talking to the people, getting to know them,” Vinall-Mogel said, “asking questions going to the farm days, whatever, and talking to people there and find what their questions are. We need to do a lot of listening.”
Remiker said that he will help the party work to improve its communications as chair. He said the party specifically needs to be clear that it represents the working class and is working to defend people’s rights and freedoms as well as democracy.
“We’re going to repeat it in as many mediums as we can and get more messengers that are able to carry that message. The information age kind of divides people’s attention into different groups, into different buckets and niche interests,” Remiker said, adding that Democrats need to work on “connecting the dots about how politics impacts nearly everything in everyone’s lives.”
Wikler preparing to depart as chair
Wikler received major props for his work from elected officials and other Democrats throughout his last convention as chair. Under his leadership, Wisconsin Democrats have won 13 of the last 16 statewide elections under his leadership, flipped the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court and won back seats in the state Legislature after new, fair maps were implemented in 2024.
“Ben Wikler — what an incredible run!” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said. “It is great to be here at the convention of the strongest state political party in the United States of America. Thank you Ben for everything you’ve done.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said Wikler has been an “extraordinary leader of this party” and added that she wouldn’t have secured another term in office without the work of him and the party.
As he opened the convention, Wikler celebrated the “No Kings” protests across the country on Saturday ahead of the convention. Thousands of Wisconsinites and millions of Americans protested against Trump, Wikler noted, adding that they pushed back against a president who thinks “he is above the law, who arrests judges, including in Wisconsin and members of Congress, including U.S, Senators, who sends Marines into U.S cities, who wants to rip health care from millions of people to hand tens of billions or billions of dollars to his royal courtiers, a man who doesn’t see himself as an elected official, but as a king.”
Wikler said the party convention is a time for Democrats to reconnect, choose new leaders and train each other for the work ahead, saying that “activism and courage” and “willingness to stand up for what is right” is how he knows the country will survive Trump’s presidency.
“We will get past these years under a would-be Mad King and tin-pot dictator held in check by Democratic values that President [George] Washington sowed into the fabric of our government,” Wikler said. “The Trump administration will end one day.”
Wikler told the convention during a conversation with Baldwin that he plans to go on vacation with his family after his term ends and is working on developing a pitch for a book that may look at the lessons that can be learned from Wisconsin. He also reassured the room that this won’t be the end of his political involvement.
“I want to stay involved in the fight,” Wikler said. “We’ll see what that will look like.”
In accordance with the state party’s constitution, the outgoing state party chair remains on the governing body for an additional year.
Wikler told reporters that he “absolutely” wants to help support Remiker and the party in its work to win a trifecta. The last time Wisconsin Democrats held a trifecta was from 2009 to 2010.
“There’s an enormous opportunity for a breakthrough in our state over this next 18 months,” Wikler said. “At the same time, I want to take time with my family, and I’m working on a book proposal… then I’ll figure out how I can be useful.”
Party members say they’d support Evers running again
One of Democrats’ goals for 2026 is to maintain control of the governor’s mansion in Wisconsin.
Gov. Tony Evers is still weighing whether he’ll run for a third term in office, but party members appeared supportive of a third run.
When Evers addressed the convention, he highlighted the work that he’s done over the last several years and emphasized that the work towards winning in the future has to start immediately.
“Everyone stopped calling me two-term or three-term Tony, and now they just call me 400-year Tony,” he said, referencing his partial veto of the last state budget in 2023 that extended a school revenue increase for 400 years. The State Supreme Court recently ruled the veto was constitutional to the anger of Republicans.
“Everyone stopped calling me two term or three-term Tony, and now they just call me 400-year Tony,” Evers said at the convention. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The crowd broke out into chants of “Tony, Tony, Tony.”
Evers also chastised the Trump administration and Republicans for being “at work to obliterate our constitutional checks and balances,” and noted that Republicans fired thousands of federal employees and are trying to cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
But he said that Democrats are “raising hell too.”
“When the Trump Administration tried to gut billions of dollars of federal funding that Congress approved and Wisconsin was counting on for our schools’ health care infrastructure, we sued,” Evers said. “When they tried to fire tens of thousands of federal workers, leaving them and their families in a lurch, we sued them. When they tried to gut AmeriCorps, which would affect the services and communities [in] more than half of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, we sued.”
Evers’ AmeriCorps lawsuit is part of what makes Puls of UW-Green Bay supportive of a third campaign.
“I really hope that he actually makes some changes, especially because I just lost my job from the AmeriCorps funding cuts,” Puls said. “He promised to help with that and fix things, so I’m really — I’m hoping for the best. I’m hoping that he stays true to his word.”
Margetta Souder of the Eau Claire County Democratic Party also said Evers needs to run again.
“[Evers is] one of the better governors we’ve ever had, and I think he’s effective if he’s allowed to do what he does best,” Souder said, adding that flipping the Legislature would help him get things done. “If I were him, I would be depressed because of how much harder he has to work in order to get anything done,” Souder said. “He needs support.”
Mark Unak, an economist and member of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party, said he also wants Evers to run again, and appreciates that he is a “straight-shooter.”
“His hands are tied with the Legislature, but what he has done has been good,” Unak said. “He comes out of the education department. He knows what the numbers look like. He knows what the demographics look like, so I think he’s a realist.”
When it comes to other names that have been thrown around, Unak said he wasn’t sure there was a candidate who could fill Evers’ shoes.
“No offense to [Lt. Gov.] Sara [Rodriguez] and no offense to [AG] Josh Kaul. I don’t think either of them are strong enough to win as governor,” Unak said.
Sam Laude, a UW-Green Bay student, said some people have been discussing the issue of Evers’ age. He is 73 and would be 75 at the start of a third term if he were to run and win. He said Democrats have had a trend of older candidates and said former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 campaign too late. However, he said Evers is still extremely popular and would likely win another term.
“As long as he maintains that energy, he can absolutely go for it,” Laude said. Watching Evers at the convention, he said he “definitely still had the energy,” adding that he had hundreds of conversations with people waiting in line to talk to him at an ice cream event Saturday evening. “I think he’s still got it and I hope that continues in the future.”
Laude said that if Evers decided not to run, he would want Wikler to run for governor.
“He deserves a break. Let him hang out with his family this summer, but we do need a presence like Ben Wikler,” Laude said, adding that he has built bridges in the party and thinks his background, including his background as a student at Harvard, would serve him well.
“He’s plenty smart for the position — would be probably more qualified than most Republican governors to be blunt — and does genuinely care about all these big issues that are impacting Wisconsin,” Laude said. “He would support education, health care access, all those things.”
“I’m on Team Tony for a third term,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan wrote on social media ahead of the convention. “There is truly no one more quintessentially WI than [Evers]. Bring on the Addam’s Family island of misfit candidates in the GOP. Evers wins because he’s the best for WI.”
Delegate holding a Tony Evers fan during the convention. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) told the Examiner that she would support Evers’ decision either way, though she said she would love to see him run. She declined to comment on who she would want to run if Evers decides otherwise, but said there are some “really strong people who are kind of waiting in the wings if he doesn’t want to.”
“We haven’t seen a Democrat with this high of ratings in a long time. I think he is beloved when he goes out into my district — everybody is so happy to see him. I would love it if he ran for a third term. I also understand if he’s, like, well, you know, I’ve had quite a few years in public service. It’s time to go on,” Emerson said. “The important thing to me is that we get this trifecta next year.”
During his speech, Evers said Republicans “better start getting used to Democrats being in power in the state,” noting that 2026 will be the first time that every member of the Legislature will have had to run under the fair maps he signed into law in 2024.
“With a Democratic trifecta, Wisconsin could expand Badger Care, pass paid family leave, get contaminants out of our water and get our kids and schools the resources they need, and yes, we could finally legalize marijuana,” Evers said to the cheers and whistles from the convention.
Evers said Democrats need to begin building the foundation to win elections now.
“We have to win… we’re going to fight like hell to make sure we do because the stakes could not be higher or not,” he said.
Lawmakers eye majorities
A Democratic trifecta would also rely on the party holding the line and making gains in the state Assembly, where Democrats are five seats away from a majority, and in the state Senate, where they are two seats from a majority.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) appeared confident that Democrats can win the Senate in 2026. Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) did not speak at the convention.
“We will get it done,” Hesselbein said.
Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) appeared confident that Democrats can win the Senate in 2026. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Hesselbein said Republicans have been holding the state back from progressing, calling attention to Wisconsin Republicans’ support of enforcing a criminal 1849 law to ban abortion and and their gutting of Evers’ state budget, removing items that would have invested in child care programs, school meals for all and tax exemptions for diapers and over-the-counter medications.
“When we’re in the majority in the state Senate — and it will happen soon — here’s what the budget will look like. We will put our kids first by finally fully funding our K-12 education… We will make historic investments in the UW and the university system, and we will stop meddling in the colleges and universities. We will make sure that the rich pay their fair share taxes,” Hesselbein said. “That’s just the budget.”
Hesselbein said Democrats would also work to ensure women have reproductive rights and pass paid medical and family leave.
Emerson said she thinks the prospect for a majority looks “really, really good for next year.”
“I’m a perpetual optimist when it comes to elections, though I’ve had my heart broken many times, but I really do think it is within our grasp.”
Emerson said Democrats could see a boost with Trump in office.
“I think we are gonna see a lot of people who are either only Trump voters and will not come out for a non-Trump election or they’re people who are seeing what’s happening not only in their community but across the country and across the world because of Trump and are saying, ‘nope, not anymore, we’re not going to put up with it,’” Emerson said.
Emerson said that Democrats are working to actively recruit candidates to run and are focused on holding Republicans accountable and encouraging constituents to do the same. She noted that Democrats have been holding town halls, including in Republican represented areas, as well as working to communicate with people about what is going on in the state Legislature.
Emerson said she has a “whole spreadsheet” of priorities if Democrats win the majorities. She said Democrats are prepared to be in the majority and are using the current session as a “dress rehearsal” even as they play defense against Republicans.
“There’s so many [Assembly Bill] ideas out there. For me, I think it really does need to be codify Roe into law,” Emerson said, adding that while there is a lot of chatter about economic policy, the decision on whether someone has a child is an economic decision. “If you’re not in charge of your own body, you really have no freedom at all.”
Party members respond to attacks on Minnesota lawmakers
The convention took place right after the apparently politically-motivated assasination of Minnesota Democratic House leader Melissa Hortman and her husband by a man impersonating a police officer. Minnesota Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot multiple times prior to Hortman.
The party worked to increase the level of security at the convention after the news broke.
As Wikler called the convention into order, he said the party was meeting in a time of “shock and grief.”
“I conveyed our support to leaders in Minnesota for swift justice and for this horror to end now and today, amidst the fear and grief, I want to reaffirm our appreciation, our gratitude for all those who have the courage to serve in public office,” Wikler said.
While talking about the attack, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin mentioned the arrest of her colleague U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla of California, saying both incidents represent attempts to silence people.
“We will not be silenced,” Baldwin said. “Let’s keep that in our heart, in our minds, in our prayers and let’s carry on in their memories.
State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Hesselbein, and Neubauer released a joint statement about the attacks on Saturday.
“No one should ever fear for their lives because of their service to their community. Political violence accomplishes nothing, and is never the answer,” the lawmakers stated. “We hope that the assailant is apprehended swiftly.”
During her speech at the convention, Hesselbein said the country and Wisconsin must “resolve political differences with conversation and debate — not at the point of a gun and not with violence.”
Hesselbein said her “heart breaks” for Minnesota colleagues and their families, noting that she is in consistent contact with colleagues all over the county, especially in the Midwest.
“We’re a close-knit community, and we’re trying to keep track and to keep each other safe,” Hesselbein said. “All of us in the Wisconsin Legislature will do what we can to help Minnesota, to help them heal and to prevent this from ever happening again and to continue to seek a safe and respectful world.”
Emerson said the attacks made the convention feel different this year.
“Any time somebody is targeted for the job that they hold, we’ve failed as a society,” Emerson said. “I was really devastated to see that happen, just like it was really devastating to see the assassination attempt on President Trump last summer, too. None of this should happen and it shouldn’t be a partisan thing.”
“How do we work really, really hard for our values, while not ostracizing other people, and I think it’s a fine line to walk, but it’s really important. We can argue vehemently about the policies that separate us and the approaches that separate us,” Emerson said. “But in the end, I really, truly, believe that all 99 Assembly people and all 33 Senators are doing what they do because they think that their approach makes Wisconsin a better place.”
A voter shows identification to an election judge. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring states to mandate voters in federal elections provide documents proving their citizenship, ruling the measure would cause a significant burden to states and potentially harm voters.
U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper issued a preliminary injunction stopping the order from going into effect while the case is pending.
“There is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship,” Casper wrote in her order.
“The issue here is whether the President can require documentary proof of citizenship where the authority for election requirements is in the hands of Congress, its statutes … do not require it, and the statutorily created (Election Assistance Commission) is required to go through a notice and comment period and consult with the States before implementing any changes to the federal forms for voter registration,” Casper, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, continued.
Democratic attorneys general in 19 states brought the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts after the president signed the order in March.
The order directed the federal Election Assistance Commission, which distributes grants to states, within 30 days to start requiring people registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or state-issued identification that indicates citizenship.
Harm to voters
In her decision to grant the preliminary injunction, Casper said the states had shown that without a pause on the executive order, “citizens will be disenfranchised.”
“The States have also credibly attested that the challenged requirements could create chaos and confusion that could result in voters losing trust in the election process,” she said.
The executive order posed risks of irreparable harm to states “for at least three reasons,” Casper wrote.
She noted the cost and resources to implement the executive order, the federal funding states are at risk of losing if they do not comply with the order and discouraging voter participation.
Chilling voter participation is “the antithesis of Congress’s purpose in enacting the (The Uniform Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) and the (National Voter Registration Act),” she wrote.
The order also would prohibit the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day. States set their own rules for ballot counting and many allow those that arrive after Election Day but postmarked before.
The states that brought the challenge to the executive order are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Crackdown on immigrants
The executive order that Trump signed in March was a culmination of his rhetoric on the campaign trail about people without U.S. citizenship voting in federal elections and his vow to crackdown on immigration and carry out mass deportations.
Republicans have sought to use the rare examples of people without citizenship voting in federal elections, and local governments that allow immigrants to vote in local elections, to tighten restrictions on voter registration.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting, just more than one per year.
A government watchdog group in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prohibit billionaire Elon Musk from ever again offering cash payments to voters in the battleground state like he did in this spring’s hotly contested Supreme Court race.
Musk handed out $1 million checks to three Wisconsin voters, including two in person just days before the state’s April 1 Supreme Court election, in an effort to help elect conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.
It was all part of more than $20 million that Musk and groups he supports spent on the race in an effort to flip majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. More than $100 million was spent by both sides, making it the most expensive court race in U.S. history.
Musk’s preferred candidate lost to Democratic-backed Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points. Her victory cemented the 4-3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2028.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says that Musk’s actions create “the risk that Wisconsin elections will become an open auction, where votes go to the preferred candidates of the highest bidders and the election outcome is determined by which candidate has a patron willing and able to pay the highest sum to Wisconsin voters.”
The lawsuit says that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and says his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance. The lawsuit asks the court to order that Musk never offer similar payments to voters again.
A spokesperson for Musk’s America PAC did not immediately return a text message Wednesday seeking comment.
There is another Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. In November 2026, control of the Legislature and the governor’s office, as well as the state’s eight congressional districts, will be decided.
The latest lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a pair of voters by the liberal Wisconsin-based Law Forward and the Washington-based Democracy Defenders Fund. It was filed against Musk, his group America PAC that announced the petition and the Musk-funded group United States of America Inc. that made the payments.
The court that Crawford joins in August could ultimately hear the new lawsuit. Crawford would almost certainly be asked to recuse from the case, and if she did, the court would be left with a 3-3 split between conservative and liberal justices.
The current court, also controlled 4-3 by liberals, declined to hear a similar hastily filed lawsuit brought by Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general seeking to block Musk’s handing out of two $1 million checks to voters two days before the election.
Two lower courts rejected that lawsuit before the Supreme Court declined to hear it on procedural grounds.
Musk’s attorneys argued in that case that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.
Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential 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. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.
A federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in April alleges that Musk and his political action committee failed to pay more than $20,000 for getting people to sign that petition in 2024. America PAC on Monday filed a motion to dismiss. That case is pending.
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.
A Wisconsin campaign finance watchdog group is suing Elon Musk and his affiliated political action committees, claiming they conspired to break state election bribery laws by paying residents millions of dollars ahead of the April Supreme Court election.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is suing billionaire Elon Musk over allegations that he violated multiple state laws, including the election bribery statute, when he offered voters a potential $1 million award for signing a petition as part of his effort to sway the result of Wisconsin’s April Supreme Court election.
Represented by Wisconsin’s Law Forward, Democracy Defenders Fund and New York-based law firm Hecker Fink, the lawsuit accuses the world’s richest man of implementing “a brazen scheme to bribe Wisconsin citizens to vote.”
Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, played a major role in this spring’s election becoming the most expensive judicial campaign in American history. Musk’s involvement in the race, which came as he was leading President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives and firing thousands of federal employees through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was widely seen as causing a backlash and helping Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeat Musk-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.
Musk and his PAC spent more than $20 million on the race.
Prior to the election, America PAC offered voters $100 if they signed a petition “in opposition to activist judges,” and another $100 if they referred another voter to sign the petition. Later, at a pre-election rally in Green Bay, Musk handed out two $1 million checks to voters, which had been advertised as awards “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.”
The lawsuit, filed in Dane County court, notes it is against the law to offer anyone more than $1 to induce them to go to the polls, vote or vote for a particular candidate.
“By offering and paying Wisconsin citizens amounts far greater than $1 to vote, Defendants violated Wisconsin’s election bribery law,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants’ payments and offers of payment to Wisconsin voters, made with the clear intent to aid one candidate and induce Wisconsinites to vote, threatened the integrity of the election and damaged public confidence in the electoral system.”
Jeff Mandell, Law Forward’s general counsel, said the lawsuit was meant to prevent efforts like Musk’s from becoming a regular occurrence.
“We are fighting for free and fair elections,” Mandell said. “We believe our democracy demands better than schemes like the one detailed in our complaint. So, we are working to hold Musk accountable and stop this from becoming the new normal.”
The U.S. Justice Department has sent letters to election officials in at least two key swing states, threatening action against the states if they don’t comply with provisions of a 2002 federal election law.
Lawyers from the department’s civil rights division sent letters in recent weeks to both Arizona and Wisconsin. The Arizona letter said that state officials are not properly verifying voters’ identities as dictated by the Help America Vote Act, and it warned of a lawsuit. The Wisconsin letter said the Wisconsin Elections Commission is not properly resolving administrative complaints as required by the same law and threatened to withhold federal election funds over that issue.
The Justice Department recently sued North Carolina also, claiming that the state has not been properly verifying voter identity.
The department issued a press release and publicly released the Wisconsin letter, dated June 4; Votebeat obtained the previously unreported Arizona letter, dated May 20, through a records request.
The letters are an early sign of how President Donald Trump’s administration is scrutinizing state election practices after his March executive order on elections, which called for stricter citizenship checks and revised voting machine standards, among other things. The Justice Department has also dropped or withdrawn from severalvoting rights cases dating from before Trump took office again in January.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, responded in a June 2 letter to the Justice Department that state election officials conduct a complete residency and citizenship check and fully comply with the Help America Vote Act when someone registers to vote.
“Arizona has a long history of adherence to voter registration requirements, both state and federal,” Fontes wrote.
The Wisconsin Elections Commissiondeclined to immediately comment on the letter that it received, which noted that the commission has declined to adjudicate administrative complaints against itself since at least 2022, due in part to a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision.
The letter said the commission’s actions “justify a bar” on future grants to the state from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The DOJ appears to be raising a “legitimate” violation in that case, David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department, said after reviewing the letter. But he characterized it as minor and stressed that the agency has limited resources to devote to enforcing voting laws.
The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the letters.
How Wisconsin Elections Commission handles conflict of interest
Under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), any state receiving money for elections must also establish an administrative process allowing people to file complaints about alleged violations of the law. If the state determines there’s a HAVA violation, it must provide an appropriate remedy, the law says; if not, it can dismiss the complaint.
In rejecting those complaints, the commission cited a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion in which Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, said it would be “nonsensical” for the Wisconsin Elections Commission to adjudicate a complaint against itself. Bradley was joined in her opinion by two other justices, and a fourth justice echoed her in a separate opinion in the case.
Becker said that WEC practice probably doesn’t comply with the federal law, which supersedes state laws, especially for federal elections.
While the election commission said it would be a conflict of interest to adjudicate complaints against itself, Becker said other agencies “do investigations of themselves all the time.”
Because of the WEC’s position, complainants are left “without any recourse,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in the letter. The commission’s actions jeopardize future federal funding, she wrote.
But in at least some cases, the agency has told complainants they can appeal a WEC ruling in court, Rob Yablon, a law professor at UW-Madison, pointed out. Yablon also said it’s unclear whether WEC’s position that it can’t resolve the complaints could itself count as a determination that meets the requirements in HAVA.
Right now, Wisconsin doesn’t stand to lose much in federal funding over the issue. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission allocated about $272,000 in election security grants to Wisconsin in the 2025 fiscal year, money that has yet to come in, according to WEC Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat.
“The commission would have to decide to take it. We would have to know the conditions of receiving it,” Jacobs said, adding that she questioned “whether or not the work that would be involved in (administering the grants) would justify the receipt of the money when … it would amount to $147.03 per clerk.”
It would take a majority vote of the commissioners for the WEC to begin adjudicating claims against itself, Jacobs said, but she wouldn’t be in favor of it.
“I think our legal analysis is correct: It’s improper for us to be the adjudicating body on whether or not we did something wrong,” she said. “I think that we can have both statutes, both federal and state law, harmoniously work together. And I think that is, in fact, what’s going on.”
WEC member Don Millis, a Republican, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following the DOJ letter, Republicans in charge of the state’s budget committee delayed a planned session to finalize the election commission’s budget, saying they had to review the Justice Department’s allegations first.
Arizona’s ID number checks are at issue
In both the North Carolina lawsuit and the Arizona letter, the DOJ asserted that the states have failed to require applicants’ driver’s license numbers when they register to vote.
In the letter to Arizona’s secretary of state, Maureen Riordan, senior counsel and acting chief of the voting section of the civil rights division, wrote that HAVA requires the state to request the applicant’s driver’s license number if the applicant has one. If not, a Social Security number is acceptable, she wrote.
The DOJ claims Arizona improperly allows registrants to use either ID number, regardless of whether the applicant has a driver’s license.
The division asked the state to revise the form and retroactively check all applicants who provided only a Social Security number “to identify any non-citizens.”
Fontes in his response explained that since 2005, Arizona has required voters who register to vote in state and local elections to provide evidence of citizenship and has designed its form to meet that requirement as well as HAVA requirements.
When someone applies, an election official completes what the state calls a “HAVA check” using the state’s driver’s license database to check the driver’s license data, as well as to confirm citizenship, he said.
“Our system and processes ensure that if those individuals have MVD credentials, the number of such credential is included in their voter record,” he wrote.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Fifield at jfifield@votebeat.org.
A Republican-backed bill would make it easier to go to court to challenge the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s rulings on administrative complaints — a shift that could increase the number of election-related lawsuits.
The proposal, Assembly Bill 268, seeks to reverse a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that limited who has the right to appeal such rulings. If passed, it would allow more residents to bring election challenges into the court system, rather than leaving accountability solely in the hands of the commission.
If the bill fails, supporters argue, holding election officials accountable for breaking the law would be difficult or even impossible.
As the law stands now, under the Supreme Court’s interpretation, “unless a person is personally, legally harmed by a WEC decision, the decision is unappealable,” Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard, the bill author, said at an Assembly elections committee hearing Tuesday.
Complaints to the Wisconsin Elections Commission are frequent
State residents of all political affiliations regularly file complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which is the legally required first step for most election-related challenges, unless they are brought by district attorneys or the attorney general.
In one prominent case after the August 2022 election, then-Racine County Republican Chair Kenneth Brown filed an administrative complaint with the commission, accusing Racine of illegally using a mobile voting van for city residents to cast in-person absentee votes. Brown alleged, among other things, that the van was stationed around more Democratic areas of the city, illegally providing an unfair partisan advantage.
The commission rejected Brown’s complaint, finding no probable cause to suspect that the use of the van was illegal. Brown, represented by the conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, appealed. State law allows election officials or complainants “aggrieved” by a commission order to appeal it to circuit court.
Courts disagreed over whether Brown was qualified to sue under that standard. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority ultimately dismissed the case, ruling that Brown had not shown the commission’s decision made it harder for him to vote or harmed him personally.
“Because Brown was not injured by WEC’s decision,” liberal Justice Jill Karofsky wrote in the majority opinion, he “does not have standing to seek judicial review.”
Republicans panned the decision. Liberals were mostly happy with the outcome of the case, but some objected to the court’s legal reasoning on standing and complained that the justices should have addressed the underlying dispute in the case — that is, whether the use of the mobile voting van was legal.
Clerks, meanwhile, largely supported the justices’ interpretation of who has standing to challenge a commission ruling in court. They expressed concern about the Wanggaard bill, which would negate that ruling.
“This concept of legal standing exists because it prevents the courts from becoming overburdened with speculative, ideological or purely political lawsuits,” Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli, a Democrat, said at the hearing. The bill, Voegeli said, opens the door to politically motivated complaints “aimed at harassing election officials or disrupting election administration.”
Proponents say bill would provide a check on the WEC
Assembly Bill 268 would explicitly allow any complainants to appeal any commission order that doesn’t give them what they’re asking for, “regardless of whether the complainant has suffered an injury to a legally recognized interest.”
Lucas Vebber, deputy counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which registered in favor of the bill, told Votebeat that in voting disputes, courts should decide cases on the underlying legal arguments, rather than focusing on who has the right to sue.
“It’s important that any government actor who’s making decisions (has) some kind of a mechanism in place to review those decisions in every case,” Vebber said.
“Both sides have filed these types of complaints,” he continued, “and I think all of them, regardless of political affiliation, should have their opportunity to have a day in court.”
Courts are already weighing in on an increasing number of voting disputes — including cases on drop boxes, whether voters can spoil their ballots and whether municipalities can forgo accessible voting machines for people with disabilities.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson said in a statement that the proposal could lead to more harassment and a “surge in litigation” against clerks since anybody in the state could file a complaint against the clerk, whether or not they were harmed, and then continue to pursue the case in court.
Wanggaard, the bill author, said it’s not his goal to put more pressure on clerks. Clerks weren’t getting flooded with cases before the Supreme Court restricted who could sue over commission complaints, he said.
Rep. Scott Krug, the Republican vice chair of the elections committee, said the bill’s language might be overly broad and suggested changes that would draw some limits on who could challenge a commission ruling in court.
For example, he said, lawmakers could clarify that only people who live in the jurisdiction where the alleged violation occurred could appeal a commission ruling.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
The chair of Wisconsin's Election Commission says the U.S. Department of Justice is mistaken after federal officials accused the state agency of breaking a federal election law.
Wisconsin Republicans are proposing an expansion of early voting, with new requirements for municipalities statewide, but some local officials say the one-size-fits-all mandate wouldn’t make sense for Wisconsin’s smallest communities.
The proposal would require every municipality in Wisconsin, regardless of its size, to offer at least 20 hours of in-person absentee voting at the clerk’s office, or an alternative site, for each election. The bill’s authors say they want to reimburse local governments for the added costs, though they haven’t yet clarified how they would do that.
Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, a Republican, said she wrote the bill after noticing the stark difference in early voting availability between rural and urban municipalities.
In the Fox Valley cities that used to be part of her district — Appleton, Oshkosh and Neenah — early voting was widely available, she said. But in many of the rural areas that she began serving after the latest redistricting cycle, she said, “nobody has early voting.”
She argues the proposal would provide more flexibility for voters and offer an alternative for those who are uncomfortable voting by mail.
Local election officials generally welcome increased access, but worry about the 20-hour mandate being a burden on smaller communities.
Acknowledging the pushback, Cabral-Guevara said, “Why should we have hesitation about giving people the opportunity of voting? Why shouldn’t there be equity across the state for rural versus urban?”
In-person absentee voting access varies across Wisconsin
In cities like Madison and Milwaukee, voters have nearly two weeks before an election to cast an in-person absentee ballot. They can vote in one of multiple locations, and at almost any time of the day.
That isn’t the case in rural Wisconsin.
Some rural municipalities provide just a one- or two-hour window for in-person absentee voting during that two-week period. In others, in-person early voting is done by appointment only at a clerk’s home, which acts as an official office for that purpose. Many have no clear policy at all for in-person absentee voting.
Clerks in smaller towns expressed mixed feelings about the proposed changes.
In Luck, a northwest Wisconsin town with about 900 residents, Patsy Gustafson serves as a part-time clerk, generally working three or four hours per week and arranging in-person early voting by appointment only. This proposal would require her to work over double her normal hours during the early voting period.
“I think I’d be sitting around a lot of that time for nothing, but hopefully it would make more people that wouldn’t otherwise vote come,” she said.
Gustafson said she supports state reimbursement to municipalities — “elections are expensive,” she said — but questions how the state would cover her added costs, especially because she’s salaried.
Cabral-Guevara said the funding formula is still being finalized.
Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, is seen when she was a state representative at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Feb. 22, 2022. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
In Elcho, a town of about 1,200 people in northern Langlade County, the 20-hour requirement would be unnecessary, Clerk Lyn Olenski told Votebeat.
“I guess I wouldn’t want that,” she said about the proposal. “We don’t have that many people that want to vote early.”
The 20-hour mandate would make even less sense for smaller municipalities, Olenski said.
“If we had 100 people, I sure wouldn’t want to sit in there for 20 hours,” she said.
Cabral-Guevara said she believes behavior could shift as early voting becomes more accessible.
“I believe that there is a duty as a clerk to make sure that there is easy access for people to be able to vote,” Cabral-Guevara said. “And if they’re sitting around, well, then they can find other things to do if they would like.”
That may be wishful thinking in places like the village of Yuba, which has only 43 registered voters. Clerk James Ueeck, who also works full time for the county in another role, said he would have to request time off from his main job to be able to provide 20 hours of early voting.
Even if every voter in the village cast a ballot early, the total time required wouldn’t come close to 20 hours. And his office would still have to keep polls open on Election Day.
“For us, it makes no sense,” he said. “I would rather just leave it where I can do it by appointment.”
Ueeck added that many clerks in Richland County also work full-time jobs and might resign their clerk positions if the mandate becomes law.
Rep. Scott Krug, a Republican from Rome and co-author of the measure, told Votebeat that he has heard concerns from small-town clerks over the 20-hour requirement. He said he’s open to tweaking the measure — for example, requiring fewer hours in communities with fewer than 250 voters. But he said there must be “access everywhere” to early voting.
Similar versions in Washington County and Connecticut
The Republican proposal mirrors a local initiative in Washington County, where officials have offered to cover the costs for municipalities that voluntarily expand early voting hours.
For the April 2025 election, the county compensated municipalities at 150% of the added cost for extending their early voting hours beyond what they were in the April 2023 election. About 90% of the municipalities in the county participated. Unlike the state proposal, Washington County’s plan had no mandated minimum hours.
Early voting has been taking off across the country, too. At this point, 47 states offer some version of in-person early voting. In Connecticut, which recently passed an early voting initiative, the program requires every municipality to be open between four and 14 days for early voting, depending on the election, regardless of population size.
In Union, Connecticut — a town of just 800 residents — Clerk Heidi Bradrick said only eight voters showed up during the 14 days of early voting in May.
“I understand their desire to have it,” she said, “but they definitely need to take into account the size of the municipality. We always laugh, like, ‘What if we get everybody to vote the first day? Can we close?’”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Months after the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a complaint about a Racine mobile-voting van, Republican lawmakers are pushing to make it easier to bring future complaints to court.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission says small communities don't need the state's permission to stop using electronic voting machines, siding with a northwestern Wisconsin town that switched to hand-counted, paper ballots last year.
A rural county in central Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove its county treasurer elected less than a year ago and replace her with the person she defeated in that election.
Adams County filed suit last week asking the court to declare that Treasurer Kara Dolezal “vacated” her position and her former opponent Kim Meinhardt is “entitled to hold that office.”
Dolezal, a Republican, defeated Meinhardt, an independent, by more than 900 votes in November 2024. In April, Dolezal was reelected to her post as town treasurer for the town of Lincoln in Adams County, a position she held prior to being elected to county-wide office.
In both the lawsuit and the county board resolution, Adams County has argued Dolezal vacated her county office by accepting a “legally incompatible” position with the town.
In a statement, Adams County said it is “confident in its legal position.” The county said it’s taking the issue to court to bring “finality” to the situation.
“Understanding that a lot of interest in this issue has found its way into the media and on social media, the County is not going to comment on ongoing litigation or try the case outside of the courtroom,” the statement reads.
But Krug said it’s long been common in Wisconsin for people to hold similar offices for both their town and county.
He said he’s working with colleagues to introduce legislation to clarify it’s possible for the same person to hold positions as county and town treasurer at the same time if both are elected positions.
“We are specifically going to say that there is no contradiction or incompatibility between the role of county treasurer and town treasurer when both are elected by people in their community,” Krug said.
But he also said the lawmakers are trying to do so without interfering with the court’s process.
“We’re trying to be cognizant of the court process while we’re introducing legislation,” Krug said. “But at the same time … we still want legislation coming forward to protect those individuals from having to go through the same type of thing, and, on the flip side of it, trying to protect their communities from having to go through exorbitant legal fees.”
Republican Rep. Scott Krug is seen at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Nov. 2, 2023. (Meghan Spirito / Wisconsin Watch)
While Dolezal has continued to perform her duties as county treasurer following the county board’s vote, Meinhardt took the oath of office for the position on May 12, according to the suit.
Dolezal has held both offices since January and was never asked to resign from her post with the town, she told WPR earlier this month. In a May 3 statement, Dolezal said she didn’t view the two positions as “incompatible” and she was transparent about being a town treasurer when she ran for county office.
“The voters still elected me as their County Treasurer,” she stated. “I believe it sets a concerning precedent if County Board Supervisors can override the will of the voters.”
Dolezal’s attorney, Catherine La Fleur, was not available for comment Tuesday.
In the lawsuit, attorneys for the county said public officials cannot simultaneously hold incompatible offices, citing a past state attorney general opinion that says the duties of a local treasurer and county treasurer are “wholly inconsistent.”
“A town treasurer collects property taxes on behalf of, not only the town, but the county, state, and other taxing jurisdictions in which the town is located,” the complaint states. “As a result, the town treasurer is subordinate to the county treasurer.”
After Dolezal took office with the county in January, the complaint states that disputes arose between Dolezal and local treasurers within the county during the property tax settlement process in the spring of 2025.
According to the complaint, the dispute was “regarding the treatment of certain property tax payments, resulting in the County directing an audit of the County Treasurer’s office.”
Mary Lou Poehler, treasurer for the town of Springville in Adams County, spoke in public comment at the county board’s meeting last month. Poehler said “financial issues” had arisen with the county since Dolezal took office.
“Being a town treasurer, I know of a lot of these,” Poehler said at the April 29 meeting. “And our town, for one, was shorted quite a bit of money.”
But Krug, the area lawmaker, said the county did not follow the proper process for removing an elected official, which requires a notice, public hearing and two-thirds vote.
Regardless of whether the county felt both offices were incompatible or had performance concerns, Krug said the board still should have followed the process outlined in state statute.
“You could just follow a simple state statute process to legitimize it,” he said. “When you take time to think and slow down, you could actually accomplish the same goal without looking like you’re trying to do something behind the scenes.”
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