Many Republicans attacked the justice system after a jury convicted Donald Trump in his hush-money trial. But Van Orden’s comments, one expert said, were “unhinged.”

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden is not hesitant to use strong or insulting language on social media.

But even for him, his response to the 34 felony convictions of former President Donald Trump on Thursday was noteworthy.

In a string of nonsensical posts on X (formerly Twitter), the Republican and former Navy SEAL from western Wisconsin compared the judge presiding over Trump’s hush-money fraud trial to an obscure Nazi judge, called him “Communist Scum,” posted a U.S. flag adorned with the Soviet hammer and sickle, and equated President Joe Biden to murderous dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler.

He also used the words “coward” and “jackass” to describe prominent Republicans who urged conservative voters to move on from Trump.

Many Republicans attacked the criminal justice system after Trump was convicted on May 30 of falsifying business records to obscure a sexual liaison with a porn star, but Van Orden’s reactions “seem all the more unhinged,” considering Trump is unlikely to face jail time for the convictions, said Joseph Heim, a UW-La Crosse political science professor emeritus.

Many experts think the former president — the first in history to be convicted of a felony — will instead receive probation. Trump, 77,  has no previous criminal record.

Van Orden’s campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment.

A first-term congressman likely to face a tough reelection in his swing district, albeit one Trump won twice, Van Orden has been a fierce defender of the former president.

He attended Trump’s rally in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, that led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol, but said he departed when the protest became a mob.

In defending Trump in the days after the conviction, Van Orden repeatedly insulted Judge Juan Merchan on X. Merchan has overseen several related cases, including the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial, after which he sentenced the organization’s CFO Allen Weisselberg to prison for his role in the scheme. Merchan also is presiding over the criminal fraud case against prominent Trump ally Steve Bannon. That trial is set to start in September.

Van Orden never mentioned in his social media comments the 12-person jury, agreed to by Trump’s lawyers, that found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged plan to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

“Van Orden doesn’t know much about judges,” said Ed Miller, a UW-Stevens Point political science professor emeritus.

Miller noted that Merchan affirmed many of the defense attorneys’ requests to the court and that Trump’s lawyers agreed to the judge’s instructions to the jury before their deliberations, all of which aligned with New York law and procedures.

“Van Orden is following Republicans and he is also doing this to obtain Republican campaign funds,” Miller said of the congressman’s social media posts. “If he didn’t, he would be cut off.”

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But Heim indicated that following the GOP’s prevailing sentiment about the jury verdict might be problematic for Van Orden in the general election.

“Running in a western Wisconsin swing district would suggest a more controlled response would be better for re-election purposes,” Heim said.

National Democratic organizations, viewing the district as deeply Republican in 2022, stayed away from substantial support for campaigns against Van Orden, then were surprised when Democrat and state Sen. Brad Pfaff nearly beat him that year.

After that strong showing, national Democratic groups this year are more inclined to spend huge sums to dislodge Van Orden in November.

In short, he will likely need a lot of cash to win.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

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Western Wisconsin congressman compares judge in Trump case to Nazi, calls him “Communist Scum” after jury convicts on all counts was first posted on June 3, 2024 at 6:18 pm.

Along with co-plaintiff the Invisible Insitute, The Badger Project is seeking the records to continue its work on wandering officers.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

The Badger Project filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Justice Thursday after it again refused to release a list of all certified law enforcement officers in the state.

The suit was filed jointly with the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit public accountability journalism organization based in Chicago.

The state DOJ had already rejected a similar open records request from the Invisible Insitute earlier in 2023. In November, along with The Badger Project, it again requested the records. Five months later, the state DOJ responded with a letter denying the request for the full list of officers and their working histories.

More than 30 states — including Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa — have released the full list of their officers to a nationwide reporting project, which includes the Invisible Institute and The Badger Project.

The lawsuit is being funded by The National Freedom of Information Coalition, through a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and from the Society of Professional Journalists, through a grant from its Legal Defense Fund.

In his denial letter, state DOJ attorney Paul Ferguson argued that releasing the full list could “endanger” undercover officers. The state DOJ is not able to identify those officers and redact them, he wrote.

Ferguson also wrote that even for non-undercover officers, releasing their identities and employers “would have an adverse effect on the safety and privacy interests of the officers and their families.”

The Wisconsin Transparency Project, a law firm dedicated to strict enforcement of the state’s Open Records laws, and the University of Illinois First Amendment Clinic filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.

“The state of Wisconsin does not and should not have secret police, and it should not require a lawsuit to establish that.”

“Courts have ruled time and time again that speculative fears of harm do not justify withholding government records from the public,” Tom Kamenick, president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project and the lead attorney in this case, said in a statement.

“Government officials must do more than merely claim that, hypothetically, something bad might happen if the records are released,” he continued. “Rather, they must show that harm is likely to occur and sufficiently serious to overcome the presumption of access to government records.”

Kamenick has represented The Badger Project in other public records lawsuits.

In responding to the records request, the state DOJ did release its list of “flagged officers,” those who lost their jobs due to termination, resignation in lieu of termination, or resignation prior to completion of an internal investigation.

But that list only consists of law enforcement officers from within the state, which The Badger Project has used to report on wandering officers. That list does not include those who were fired or forced out from law enforcement jobs out of state and then came to Wisconsin.

Officers from at least one neighboring state have been moving to jobs in Wisconsin. After Illinois passed some law enforcement reform measures in 2021, some police started transferring to agencies in “more conservative states,” including Wisconsin, Kenny Winslow, executive director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, told the Washington Post last year.

The Invisible Institute and The Badger Project are asking the court to force the release of the full list of law enforcement officers in the state as well as their work histories. When judges rule that public agencies have illegally refused to release records, that agency is forced to pay the requester’s legal fees, according to state law.

“The state of Wisconsin does not and should not have secret police,” Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, wrote in an email. “And it should not require a lawsuit to establish that.”

DISCLOSURE NOTE: As president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, Bill Lueders supported the plaintiffs’ grant application to the national NFOIC. The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council also contributed financially to the lawsuit.

Sam Stecklow of the Invisible Institute contributed to this story.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

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‘Wisconsin does not, and should not, have secret police’ – The Badger Project sues state DOJ for full list of law enforcement officers was first posted on May 24, 2024 at 6:13 am.

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• The state Department of Health Services is changing procedures for the 265 Wisconsin food pantries that participate in The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides certain healthy foods that pantry donations don’t always cover.
• The state previously required workers at those pantries to check IDs of every person in a household and verify the person lived in the pantry’s county. The new rules — designed to improve food access — do not allow pantries to ask for identification or verify addresses.
• Some pantry directors support the change. Others fear they could create local food shortages. Some wonder how to accommodate a potential influx of out-of-county clients and track important demographic information.
• State officials say no problems have been identified in the 35 other states that already lack identification requirements.

Wisconsin’s emergency food pantries can now decide whether to check clients’ identification and verify their addresses. By October, the state will require them to stop asking. 

The change will improve access to a key federal program, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said. Some pantry coordinators support the changes, but others counter that it could complicate their work. They say the state has yet to answer important questions.

Several coordinators voiced concerns when the health department last month announced changes that affect 265 state food pantries that accept food from The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP. The federally funded program provides healthy foods that pantry donations don’t always cover, including milk, eggs, meat, fresh fruits and vegetables. Most participating pantries rely on the program for a significant amount of their food.

The overhaul comes as demand for emergency food surges following the expiration of extra FoodShare benefits during the pandemic. 

The state previously required pantry workers to check IDs of every person in a household and verify the person lived in the pantry’s county. While pantries made exceptions for certain vulnerable groups with less access to IDs and fixed addresses, requesting that information creates unnecessary obstacles to food, supporters of the change say.

“We want to make sure people have an equitable and dignified way to receive food and we feel like the less information gathering in that regard that’s allowable, the better,” a health department spokesperson said.

With the change, Wisconsin joins 35 other states, including neighboring Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan, where TEFAP pantries don’t ask for ID.

Some anti-hunger advocates say eliminating ID checks could create local food shortages. Others support the change but worry about how to accommodate a potential influx of out-of-county clients and track demographic information about their visitors.

‘A horrible feeling’ to be turned away

Emma Tomberlin started experiencing homelessness in Madison 10 years ago. Someone stole her ID at the time, and she couldn’t afford a replacement, she said. 

She didn’t realize a local pantry would ask for identification before distributing food and hygiene products. After coordinating a ride one day and waiting in line, she said, the pantry turned her away.

“To realize that I was not worthy of food because I didn’t have an ID, and to be told that and to be turned away hungry, is just a horrible feeling,” Tomberlin said. 

She moved into her own apartment about two years ago, but she’s still not sure she could gather the paperwork the pantry’s website says it requires.

Under the previous state requirements, Wisconsin’s emergency pantries would still serve people without proper documentation during initial visits but, in rare cases, might block those who repeatedly returned without verifying their address. Unhoused people, undocumented immigrants and survivors of domestic abuse had additional leeway, guaranteeing service even on repeat visits without full documentation.

But perceptions matter just as much as procedure when it comes to food access, said Joli Guenther, executive director of the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services. She supports the eased state requirements.

Asking for an ID might discourage people most in need from showing up, Guenther said.

“We do want food pantries to be as low barrier as possible because that’s such an immediate need.”

Fears of food shortages

TEFAP makes emergency food aid available to households who make no more than twice the federal poverty level. That’s $40,880 annually for a two-person household.

Even before the latest changes, clients could self-declare their income without bringing proof. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the state required pantries to collect client signatures attesting to their eligibility. Safety concerns during the pandemic halted the requirements, although some pantries later resumed collecting signatures. 

That included Milwaukee-based Hunger Task Force, an anti-hunger nonprofit that relies on TEFAP for about half of its food bank supply. The signature requirement discouraged people from untruthfully claiming eligibility or inflating their household size — increasing the likelihood that food would go to people most in need, Hunger Task Force CEO Sherrie Tussler said.

Pantries may no longer collect such signatures under the state changes. That will make it virtually impossible to stop people from taking food they don’t need, Tussler contends.

“It’s completely ungoverned,” Tussler said. “Nobody’s answering the question, what’s really going to happen when we have food shortages?”

State officials don’t expect that to happen. The state health department found no shortages in surrounding states that lack identification and signature requirements, a spokesperson said.

Channel One Regional Food Bank, which serves residents of 13 Minnesota counties and Wisconsin’s La Crosse County, has faced no issues abiding by an honor system in Minnesota, said Virginia Witherspoon, its executive director.

“This truly gets down to what you believe about people, and if you believe that people are trying to take advantage of a system,” she said. “We don’t see that.” 

Among supporters of loosened identification requirements: Melissa Larson, food access and resource program manager at West CAP, which serves seven western Wisconsin counties.

In small-town pantries like West CAP’s, workers already know their clients on a first-name basis, and ID checks only create obstacles.

“In a rural area, it’s completely different,” Larson said.

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, which operates pantries in rural, urban and suburban areas of northeast Wisconsin and around Milwaukee, also welcomes the changes.

“We expect that the good this program will accomplish, the new enrollments and access this would facilitate, the increased ease of distribution, and the increased dignity and compassion this would provide to the participant will greatly outweigh the potential risk,” John Zhang, the organization’s director of community and government relations, told WPR and Wisconsin Watch in an email.

Expanded options for pantry clients 

Ryan Rasmussen, executive director of the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry, doesn’t expect people to start taking food they don’t need. 

“We get this question asked a lot about, ‘How many folks do you think are actually taking advantage of your pantry?’ And quite honestly, my response is zero,” he said.

But Rasmussen worries the revised guidelines will increase visits from outside of Winnebago County.

The federal government distributes emergency foods to pantries based on local poverty and unemployment rates. New state rules will allow clients to regularly visit any pantry statewide — even if it lies outside of their home county.

Rasmussen sees the potential for mismatches between resources and demands on some pantries during a time of growing demand.

While health department officials see no evidence that the new guidelines will spur a spike in cross-county visits, they will explore other food distribution models if issues arise, a spokesperson said.

Oshkosh Area Community Pantry saw a 70% increase in usage between 2022 and 2023, Rasmussen said. The pantry last year served 800 households from outside of Winnebago County. Workers then could refer those clients to options in their home county for future visits — easing demands on local resources, Rasmussen said. 

“The need is definitely growing and it’s definitely great,” Rasmussen said. “We’re doing all that we can to make sure that we stay ahead of it.” 

For Kenneth Tackett, two monthly visits to the Oshkosh pantry cover most of his needs, and there’s no reason to visit other pantries. 

“It’s where I get my bread, vegetables, potatoes, meat,” he said. “I feel blessed to have the availability to be able to do something like this.”

Federal aid important for many pantries

Most pantries rely on a mixture of TEFAP, food banks, grocery stores and donations. The federal program was an important source of food for 89% of pantries participating in the program, according to a state health department survey. 

Nearly a quarter of participating pantries get most or all of their food from the federal program, the survey showed. Most participants call the program’s food “very healthy.” 

The state health department says loosening restrictions for pantry visitors might expand pantry participation. Most pantries that don’t participate have “quite a bit” or “a great deal” of concern with program requirements and associated paperwork, survey responses show.

Most participating pantries reported no issues with requirements and reporting, and multiple pantry directors worry about losing mechanisms to collect information needed to apply for funding. 

The Sharing Center, a rural food pantry in Kenosha County, gets about 90% of its food from donations, with 10% coming from TEFAP, said Sharon Pomaville, the organization’s executive director.

Donors often question whether the pantry is “a free-for-all” that doesn’t scrutinize who receives assistance, Pomaville said.

Pomaville added in an email that she expects her organization to opt out of the federal program “because it’ll gut our pantry, and not allow us to collect data that allows us to secure critical programmatic grants for seniors, children, and veterans.”

State officials say pantries can still collect data, such as the ages of their clients, for food not associated with the federal program. But workers must clarify the questions aren’t required for TEFAP foods — potentially requiring pantries to adopt different procedures for different types of foods.

Some pantry leaders feel out of the loop

Some pantry leaders say they felt excluded from the state’s decision-making process, and they were surprised to find an updated TEFAP client form on the health department website before officials told them about the changes directly. 

The pantry directors currently lack access to an updated procedure manual, which the health department plans to publish in October.

A spokesperson said the health department asked regional TEFAP coordinators in November for feedback on the changes but heard little criticism until the department announced the changes in April.

“If the whole state would have come back to us with challenges, I think we would have had to look at this a lot closer,” the department spokesperson said.

Shane Fitzsimmons contributed reporting. This story comes from a partnership of Wisconsin Watch and WPR. Addie Costello is WPR’s Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Reporting Fellow embedded in the newsroom of Wisconsin Watch.

Wisconsin drops ID checks at federally funded food pantries 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.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

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• Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal, there has been a reported increase in ballots being turned in too late to count.
• Rural voters in particular are disadvantaged by the lack of drop boxes because they often have only one election clerk who can receive absentee ballots and U.S. mail service has declined.
• Elected clerks throughout Wisconsin support reinstating drop boxes, which the new liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court could do after it hears a case Monday.

If voters in Burnside, Wisconsin, want to drop off their absentee ballots before an election, they have to go several miles outside of town, down a hilly, rural county road that requires four-wheel drive most of the year, and to the doorway or mailbox of Melissa Kono’s house.

Kono is the part-time clerk for Burnside, a 500-person town in the western part of the state. She mostly works from home since Burnside’s town hall does not have internet service.

Ideally, she said, there would be a ballot drop box at the town hall, which is conveniently located along a major highway. A drop box would also give absentee voters another alternative to mailing ballots, which can be slow in rural Wisconsin, Kono said.

But the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned the use of ballot drop boxes in 2022, ruling that state law required absentee ballots to be returned by mail or in person to the municipal clerk. In Burnside, that means getting it to Kono’s residence.

On Monday Wisconsin Supreme Court justices will hear arguments in a lawsuit alleging the court incorrectly interpreted state law in that earlier decision. Ahead of the hearing, Votebeat has found that the absence of drop boxes often made elections more logistically complicated, not only for voters, but also for municipal clerks.

“I’m not a full-time clerk. I get paid a small stipend for doing this,” Kono said. “I’m not going to sit down at the town hall all the time because I have to have a full-time other job. So I would like a drop box, just for convenience for both voters and for myself.” 

The challenges can be pronounced for people living in the hundreds of Wisconsin municipalities where clerks work part-time, leaving voters with a limited time window to return a ballot in person. The state’s ban on unattended drop boxes has coincided with an increase in reports of absentee ballots showing up too late to be counted.

Outstate voters would stand to gain especially from the reintroduction of drop boxes as a way to cast an absentee ballot, said Daniel Griffith, senior policy director at Secure Democracy USA, noting that rural Wisconsin counties have just one in-person polling location every 34 square miles, compared with one every 13 square miles in suburban counties.

Rural voters also tend to be older, and more of them live with a disability, which “all compounds and makes it that much more important that rural voters especially have access to these ways to cast ballots,” said Peter Skopec, an advocacy director for the group.

About two-thirds of Wisconsin voters favored having “secure and convenient drop off places for absentee ballots which would be accessible 24 hours a day,” a Secure Democracy Foundation poll conducted in November 2023 found.

Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of clerks in Wisconsin support allowing at least one ballot drop box per municipality, according to a 2021 survey by Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center. More than half favored allowing municipalities to set up at least one, and as many drop boxes as they would like, while 22% said they would prefer to outlaw them.

Andrew Mercil, an appointed Democratic clerk in rural, mostly Republican Dunn County, said he and many other election officials across rural Wisconsin want drop boxes back “for not only ease of voters to be able to participate in democracy, but also so that it helps them with the collection of absentee ballots.”

Other rural clerks acknowledged the risks and hassles associated with the ban, but said that for varied reasons, they oppose lifting it.

Drop boxes: Popular in 2020, banned in 2022

Many municipalities embraced drop boxes beginning in 2020 after the Wisconsin Elections Commission, understanding drop boxes to be legal, pointed to them as a way for clerks to make sure Wisconsin residents could still vote while avoiding polling places during the height of the pandemic. Some clerks had already been using drop boxes for over 10 years, a commission report states.

For the 2020 presidential election, Wisconsin had 528 absentee ballot drop boxes in about 430 communities. By 2021, there were 570.

But opposition to drop boxes swelled after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, and Wisconsin flipped to the Democratic column after favoring Donald Trump in 2016. Conservative Trump supporters alleged that Democrats used drop boxes to gain an electoral advantage, even though the boxes existed across the state, in heavily Democratic and Republican areas. 

A conservative group sued the state in 2021, seeking a declaration that voters can return absentee ballots only by mail or by handing them directly to a clerk or a representative of a clerk — not to a drop box. A Waukesha judge ruled in the group’s favor in early 2022, and a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the ruling.

Some Trump supporters believe the ruling means drop boxes were illegal in the 2020 election, but the court ruling wasn’t retroactive.

Now, liberal group Priorities USA and other plaintiffs are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court — this time, with a liberal majority — to reverse the ban. 

How drop boxes help rural voters overcome challenges

Some clerks in rural Wisconsin told Votebeat drop boxes could lower barriers that they and voters face because of limited work hours and mail delays.

Under current Wisconsin law, voters must hand or mail their absentee ballots to a clerk.

In Burnside, mailing ballots raises issues because the U.S. Postal Service routes the town’s mail through Minnesota, Kono said. A few days’ delay in the mail could cause ballots to show up late. Wisconsin ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on election day.

“The window for absentee voting isn’t really all that big,” she said. “It’s fine if you know you’re going to be gone, but if something comes up, it’s not unreasonable that people are going to realize at the last minute that they need an absentee ballot. And now there’s not enough time to do this convoluted process.”

Drop boxes would have come in handy in the August 2022 election, around the time the entire staff of a post office serving Dunn County quit, said Mercil, the clerk. Workers from neighboring post offices came in to help, but there was a risk at the time that ballots sent by mail wouldn’t be delivered on time, Mercil said.  

In that election, 20 absentee ballots (not including those sent to military and overseas Wisconsin residents or in-person absentee ballots) showed up at the clerk’s office too late to count, according to results reported to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In the higher-turnout November 2022 election, only three Dunn County absentee ballots showed up too late to count.

Carolyn Loechler, the town clerk of Elk Mound in Dunn County, said she should be able to rely on the Postal Service but has sometimes seen weeklong delivery delays. She acknowledged USPS, like many other employers in rural areas, faced worker shortages.

But Loechler said she’s against drop boxes because she works from home and doesn’t want to have to drive to collect ballots from a drop box. 

In a brief submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in favor of drop boxes, several clerks pointed to Elcho, a town of about 1,200 people in northern Wisconsin, as an example of an election office that would benefit from legalizing drop boxes. Elcho’s town office is open just six hours a week.

Elcho Clerk Lyn Olenski said she gets by just fine without drop boxes and doesn’t feel strongly for or against them because voters can always hand her their ballots.

“Everybody has access to my cell phone number. I live five minutes from the town hall,” she said. “I work another job right across from the town hall. They know they can call me at any time, and I will meet them here anytime.”

Ballots end up in the wrong place

The ban on ballot drop boxes has sometimes confused voters who were accustomed to using them in previous elections. In some cases, that means their votes don’t get counted. Trenton Clerk Heather Krueger said that in every election since the 2022 ban, she has found a couple of ballots in the town’s utility bill drop box, even though she has instructed voters not to do that.

To help make sure those votes can still count, Krueger said she contacts those voters and lets them know that state law now requires them to return absentee ballots over the mail or in person to the clerk. Sometimes she drives to the voter’s house.

“It’s kind of silly,” she said. “You just have to hand it to them, and then they … hand it back to us.”

In other instances, though, Krueger found ballots in the utility bill drop box on an election day, or the the night before, and didn’t have time to alert the voters. In those cases, those ballots didn’t count.

“It’s disappointing for everybody when a ballot is returned (last-minute), but not correctly, and we don’t have enough time to notify them of that,” she said. Still, she’s opposed to reinstituting drop boxes because she says there’s less control over who’s returning the ballots.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that voters can return only their own ballot in person to a municipal clerk. The same applies to voters returning ballots by mail, Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said. There’s an exception allowing Wisconsin residents with disabilities to get help returning absentee ballots from a person they choose, but it can’t be their employer, or a representative of their employer or union.

Voter groups see value in rural drop boxes

Voting rights groups continue to favor drop boxes as a way to ensure access to the ballot for rural voters.

Drop boxes were used in rural communities well before the pandemic, said Eileen Newcomer, voter education manager at the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which submitted a brief in the ongoing lawsuit in favor of drop boxes.

They helped accommodate rural voters who live far from their clerk’s office, she said, and provide a way around mail delays that affect rural communities.

In general elections since 2020, the number of absentee ballots (not including special ballots transmitted to military or overseas Wisconsin voters or in-person absentee ballots) that clerks say showed up at their offices too late to count has increased, according to publicly posted data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The commission notes that its data, however, is likely incomplete because it relied on clerks’ voluntary reporting to the commission.

The pattern is consistent with the idea that absentee ballot drop boxes help facilitate the timely return of votes, said Burden, the UW-Madison professor.

“It’s probably not making people go out and vote just because the drop box happens to be in their community,” Burden said. “But once they’ve got a ballot in their hands at home, and they’re thinking about … if they’re going to get it back in time, having a drop box just provides that extra option, and it has some benefits because it cuts out the Postal Service as the intermediary and ensures they’re going to make the deadline.”

Are drop boxes legal? Two opposing interpretations

After the 2020 election, conservatives seized on mail voting, and drop boxes in particular, as potential tools for voter fraud. Trump himself said drop boxes were “only good for Democrats and cheating.” 

But there’s no evidence that absentee ballot drop boxes were used to commit widespread fraud in Wisconsin. And the way they were used would have made it nearly impossible.

Wisconsin clerks processed absentee ballots from drop boxes just as they did any other absentee vote, including those sent through the mail. With narrow exceptions for military voters, election officials send absentee ballots only to Wisconsin residents who are confirmed to have registered to vote with a valid ID.

Before opening a ballot envelope deposited in a drop box, election officials would verify that it had witness and voter signatures and a witness address. Then they would open the envelope, verify that the person casting the ballot was qualified to vote and that they hadn’t already voted in the election, and record them on the poll books as having returned their absentee ballot. Only then would they tabulate the vote. 

Other conservatives didn’t assert widespread fraud but said they played to Democrats’ advantage.

One conservative group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, said in a report that Biden’s margin would have been substantially narrower without drop boxes. That same report found communities with drop boxes averaged 48 more voters than similar communities without them, but that liberal communities were likelier than conservative communities to have drop boxes as a ballot return option.

But the most successful legal argument against them — the one that led to their prohibition  — is that they just aren’t permissible under state law. That’s the argument in play in the current lawsuit challenging the ban.

The opponents of drop boxes cited a Wisconsin law saying absentee ballots must be mailed by the voter or delivered in person to the municipal clerk. In their view, that doesn’t permit returning ballots to a drop box. They also pointed to a broader law stating that while voting is a constitutional right that should be strongly encouraged, “voting by absentee ballot is a privilege … (that) must be carefully regulated to prevent the potential for fraud or abuse.”

Groups advocating for drop boxes say the law doesn’t restrict how or where Wisconsin clerks can receive absentee ballots — indicating drop boxes could be one of those ways. Since Wisconsin law is ambiguous about whether drop boxes are legal, they say, the court should interpret the law in a way that doesn’t burden Wisconsin residents’ constitutional right to vote.

After drop boxes came under intense scrutiny following the 2020 election, including allegations they weren’t legal, Republican lawmakers sought to create a state law expressly authorizing their use.

2021 Senate Bill 209 would have allowed municipalities to have an absentee ballot drop box as long as it connected to the building housing a clerk’s office. The proposal would have allowed an additional three drop boxes in cities with 70,000 or more people.

Multiple voting groups opposed the bill, saying it would reduce the number of drop boxes in large cities like Madison and Milwaukee, since they had more drop boxes than the bill would have allowed, and make it harder for people to vote.

Republicans saw it a different way since they didn’t think drop boxes were legal under state law.

“I’m confused by a lot of statements that have been made because SB 209 allows people to have more access to voting,” then-Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said on the Senate floor. “SB 209 deals with the fact that drop boxes currently are not in statute. They’re not legal. So number one, we’re legalizing drop boxes.”

The bill passed the Senate but never received a vote in the Assembly as Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, appeared poised to veto the proposal. That was less than a year before courts banned the use of drop boxes.

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat’s free newsletters here.

Rural Wisconsin voters face additional hurdles without ballot drop boxes 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.

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In November 1998, two months after joining the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, my first big story was reporting on a school shooting plot at the high school in Burlington, a city of 10,000 residents 40 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

A tip to police led to arrests, stopping students who had planned to kill certain classmates and staff.

It all seemed a bit surreal.

Five months later, I was sent to cover the landmark school shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, a city of 40,000 residents in Colorado. Two students killed 13 people — including a 16-year-old John Tomlin, who had spent most of his childhood in Wisconsin — then themselves.

I wrote that, while covering John’s funeral, less than a year after the birth of my daughter, I shed tears on the job for the first time in 15 years as a reporter.

On Wednesday, authorities said police shot and killed a student armed with a weapon outside of the middle school in Mount Horeb, 20 miles southwest of Madison. Affectionately known as “the troll capital of the world,” the village has about 8,000 residents.

News reports identified the student as Damian Haglund, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at the school. ABC News, quoting sources, said he had what appeared to be a long gun. But authorities have released few other details. 

What is clear about school shootings in the U.S. is that, despite feelings of, “I never thought it could happen here,” the worst incidents frequently occur in smaller towns.

Worst school shootings often in smaller towns

Since 1988, the overwhelming majority of U.S. mass school shootings — defined as at least four people shot and at least two killed — have occurred in rural or suburban locations, typically by white male teenagers, said Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox.

“The copycat effect is strongest when there is similarity with the role model,” he said.

According to his data, since 2014, there have been mass school shootings in larger cities such as Nashville, St. Louis and Santa Clarita, California. But six occurred in smaller communities: Uvalde, Texas (15,000); Oxford Township, Michigan (22,000); Santa Fe, Texas (13,000); Parkland, Florida (37,000); Benton, Kentucky (5,000); and Marysville, Washington (72,000).

Eight of the 10 deadliest U.S. school shootings since 1966 happened in communities with a population of less than 50,000, according to researcher David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.

“What 60 years of these incidents shows is that students of all ages, all different demographics, all different backgrounds, all different levels of academic performance, have committed these attacks,” Riedman said. “So, people in every community need to be mindful of the warning signs.”

He said those include people threatening to hurt themselves or others, or sharing plans or manifestos on social media.

Since Columbine, according to Riedman’s data, 59 school shootings have occurred where four or more people were wounded. 

There have also been 272 “near-misses” — incidents without injuries or deaths, or a shooting with victims killed or injured that had the potential to be much worse.

The Mount Horeb near-miss had similarities to a deadly school shooting in January at Perry High School in Iowa. Perry, 40 miles northwest of Des Moines, also has a population of 8,000. In that incident, a 17-year-old student killed one student and wounded six others. Also wounded was the school principal, who died 10 days later.

It’s worth noting that mass killings occur in private homes much more often than in schools or other public settings, according to Fox.

How Mount Horeb has reacted

Mount Horeb School Board member Adam Mertz, a 25-year resident of the village, heard about the incident in his community in a phone call from his daughter, Siobhan, a junior at the high school, which is across the street from the middle school. 

The schools were locked down into the evening partly over concerns about whether there was an ongoing threat, he said.

“You are shocked, saddened, but not surprised — which is a sad reaction,” Mertz said. “But we spent what we had always hoped was an inordinate amount of time as a board discussing safety measures.” 

Those included putting in place secured entrances, shatterproof glass, a school resource officer, equipment upgrades to enhance police communication inside schools and mental health programs for students.

“I think that there is an enormous sense of relief” in the community, Mertz said. “There is enormous pride in the work that our teachers and administrators and police did (Wednesday), and I’ve heard nothing but glowing reaction about how the students handled this whole situation. Everyone did everything they were supposed to do in a situation like this, and that helped prevent us from becoming one of those names.”

There are also thoughts about the student who was killed.

“Because there weren’t additional casualties, I think that a lot of people are placing their focus on the young man who was so distraught that he felt like this was his best option, even after being confronted by police,” Mertz said. 

“I know that that’s tearing apart a lot of people who have just worked tirelessly to elevate mental health as something to care about. To feel like you weren’t able to reach this kid when he clearly needed someone to talk to, I know that that’s weighing on people.”

Mount Horeb shooting: ‘People in every community need to be mindful of the warning signs’ 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.

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The race to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in western Wisconsin is on, with three Democratic candidates jostling in a primary that offers voters three distinct paths forward for the general election.

Small-business owner Rebecca Cooke, state Rep. Katrina Shankland and information technology professional Eric Wilson are all running for the Democratic nomination in the 18-county district. Van Orden’s seat is seen by both national and Wisconsin Democrats as a prime flip opportunity to help them win back the U.S. House in November.

Spanning most of western Wisconsin, the district is a mixture of small Democratic-leaning cities — La Crosse, Eau Claire and Stevens Point — and rural Republican communities near the Minnesota border. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report says the race leans Republican, with its Partisan Voter Index indicating the district is slightly more Republican than Democratic.

A vocal critic of President Joe Biden and an ally of former President Donald Trump, Van Orden is a freshman who won his seat in 2022 after longtime Democratic Rep. Ron Kind retired. 

Van Orden has the resources to mount a competitive reelection campaign, though he has attracted negative headlines for his conduct in Washington. For example, he drew bipartisan rebukes after reports surfaced that he yelled and cursed at a group of high school-aged Senate pages. Last week, coming to the defense of House Speaker Mike Johnson on the House floor, Van Orden challenged Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz to file a motion to oust the speaker. Van Orden called Gaetz “tubby” after Gaetz called him a “squish,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Van Orden has sought to appeal to more moderate voters over the past year. For example, after a train derailment in his district last summer, Van Orden introduced legislation that would bolster the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative abilities.

Cooke, Shankland and Wilson all have a similar reason for getting into the race: They say Van Orden has failed the residents of his district and his constituents deserve a representative who can get things done.

But all three present unique political identities to Democratic primary voters — setting the race up to be a litmus test for Wisconsin Democrats outside of Madison and Milwaukee. Which type of Democrat can win outstate is particularly noteworthy with new legislative districts in place and control of the state Senate potentially on the line in 2026.

Cooke sells herself as a sort of everywoman. She is leaning hard on her background as the child of dairy farmers and a nonprofit founder, as well as her current experience working a blue-collar job as a waitress. She also has a background working as a political fundraiser.

She’s relying on relationships and campaign infrastructure she built during her first campaign — Cooke came in second in the Democratic primary for the seat in 2022 with 31% support — to help power her to a win in August, Cooke said in an interview with Wisconsin Watch.

Spending her time talking about “bread and butter issues” like health care and housing affordability will help her appeal to the moderate and crossover Republican voters needed to win the seat, Cooke said. So far she has a sizable fundraising advantage over Shankland and Wilson. She noted that strong fundraising will be key in defeating Van Orden in November.

“We’re going to need the bank to be able to win,” she said, adding that her fundraising in the primary will help get the attention and financial support of national Democratic groups if she makes it through the primary.

Shankland, who has served in the Assembly since 2013, is campaigning on her legislative experience. It’s a strategy former Rep. Peter Barca also may use as he seeks to challenge U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil in southeast Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, the other seat Democrats are targeting in the state.

In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, Shankland noted that she has worked on more than 200 bills that have become law during her time in office — all while serving in the minority. Her work on agricultural issues — including conservation projects aimed at improving soil quality and protecting water quality — shows she can pass policy important to people living in the 3rd Congressional District, she said.

“We’ve heard this every day on the trail: Voters value and put a premium on candidates with experience,” Shankland said.

The state representative also pointed to February polling her campaign released showing her running the strongest against Van Orden as evidence she’s the right candidate for the job. Cooke pushed back on that claim, noting the small sample size, and said her campaign plans to produce its own polling in the coming months.

Wilson, who lags significantly behind both Cooke and Shankland in fundraising, said he is the “progressive voice” in the race.

He is also running to do more than just beat Van Orden in the fall, Wilson said. He’s running to talk about “the difficult issues that people want to hear about.”

Those include Medicare for All — a central element to his campaign. Wilson also wants to advocate for “responsible gun ownership” and more affordable housing, he said.

With three distinct approaches to campaigning on the ballot, the Democratic primary — and how the winner fares against Van Orden — could signal to other campaigns how to approach western Wisconsin in future contests.

What we’re watching this week

Wednesday

🕵️ The Wisconsin Elections Commission holds a public hearing at 1 p.m. on a proposed rule “concerning the conduct, regulation, and accommodation of election observers.” The meeting can be viewed online here.

Thursday

🫏🐘 WisPolitics hosts a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. at the Madison Club with state Republican Party chair Brian Schimming and state Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler. Watch on Wisconsin Eye here.

☀️ The Senate Utilities and Technology Committee hosts a public hearing in Capitol Room 411S at noon with invited speakers on community solar. Speakers include Brandon Smithwood, vice president of policy for Dimension Renewable Energy; JD Smith and John Schulze of Arch Electric and Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin; Zack Hill, senior manager of public affairs for Alliant Energy; and Sarah Moon, co-founder and principal of Fieldworks Power.

🧑‍🎓 PROFS hosts a free forum at 4 p.m. in the Wisconsin Idea Room in the Education Building on the future off flagship universities and how UW-Madison compares with its peer institutions amid cuts to higher education and efforts to scale back diversity efforts, certain curriculum and tenure. Guests include UW education professor Taylor Odle, University of Minnesota education professor David Weerts and journalist Elaine Povich of Stateline.

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Forward is a look at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.

What type of Democrat can win in rural Wisconsin? 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.

By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review A new social media policy under discussion this week prohibits city employees from posting statements on social media that could “compromise public confidence” in Wausau, a rule that – if violated – could result in termination. The proposed social media policy is one of several items on […]

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