La Corte Suprema revirtió la prohibición que regía desde el 2022 luego de una demanda que instauró el grupo progresista Priorities USA

Los comicios presidenciales se llevarán a cabo el próximo 5 de noviembre y desde ya se conocen varios aspectos nuevos que podrían cambiar el resultado final. La novedad más reciente es la relacionada con el fallo de la Corte Suprema que revirtió la prohibición de los buzones en el estado indeciso presidencial.

Esto quiere decir que aquellas personas que quieren votar, lo podrán hacer en urnas especialmente designadas para ese propósito, sin tener que enviarlas por correo o entregarlas personalmente en la oficina del secretario municipal, “en el corazón mismo de nuestra democracia está la libertad fundamental de votar, y la votación mediante buzón es una forma segura de ayudar a garantizar que todos los habitantes de Wisconsin elegibles puedan emitir su voto”, manifestó el gobernador Tony Evers.

Dicha decisión hace parte de toda una campaña que buscaba revocar la norma que regía desde hace dos años. El Gobernador Evers instó a la Corte a considerar la decisión, argumentando que en épocas pasadas era posible entregar las papeletas asegurando el resguardo y protección de las votaciones.

La decisión del Alto Tribunal es un paso que facilita el proceso de votación para aquellos que quieren participar democráticamente, pero evitan acercarse a los puntos o enfrentar fallas en el envío del voto vía servicio postal, “esta es una victoria para nuestra democracia y vamos a seguir luchando para garantizar que todos los votantes elegibles puedan emitir su voto de manera segura y tan fácil como sea posible para asegurarnos de que sus voces sean escuchadas”, aseguró el Gobernador.

Por su parte, David Fox, abogado del grupo progresista Priorities USA, afirmó que la decisión aprueba una medida conveniente y confiable “si envías la papeleta por correo, no sabes cuándo llegará y los votantes se preocupan de si llegará a tiempo y si se contará, pero si la colocas en un buzón antes de la fecha límite, sabes que irá directamente a los funcionarios electorales y se contará”.

 FUENTE: 

 

The post Wisconsin vuelve a tener buzones de votación en ausencia appeared first on MIWISCONSIN: Conectando los latinos en español | News in spanish.

Damakant Jayshi

Wausau might not see any immediate change in its approach to homelessness after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed cities to impose criminal penalties on people sleeping in public places.

That is because the city has already imposed some restrictions on people without permanent homes. An ordinance bans camping in public places and the police have been aggressively enforcing it, like the one under the Scott Street Bridge. But the Supreme Court decision could lead to louder calls for a stricter approach to homelessness in the city.

Delivering its decision on June 28 regarding homelessness in Grants Pass, a small city in Oregon that wanted to ban sleeping in public places, the Supreme Court said the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment that bans cruel and unusual punishment was not applicable even when cities do not offer them alternative places to sleep.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision along ideological lines came in response to Grants Pass v. Johnson and allows cities to ban homeless people from sleeping in public places, like parks and sidewalks, even when they have nowhere else to go. Advocates fear that such a ban will only exacerbate the problem and criminalize homelessness. The apex court’s majority opinion, however, has said that people who sleep outside in public places can cite that as a “necessity defense” if they are booked for violating bans on sleeping outdoors.

Leaders in some cities like San Francisco and Portland have welcomed the decision, but others like the mayor of Los Angeles and the mayor of Knoxville, Tenn. have criticized it. While those in support say the decision allows city leaders more leverage to deal with homelessness in a compassionate way, opponents say it will criminalize poverty.

The Wisconsin affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, which submitted a friend-of-the-court submission urging the Supreme Court to enshrine protections for homeless residents, criticized the decision.

“The ACLU of Wisconsin is deeply troubled by the decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson et al,” ACLU-WI staff attorney-researcher, Emma Shakeshaft told Wausau Pilot & Review. “In effect, this decision supports the criminalization of poverty by targeting people who do not have access to housing or indoor shelter. The decision upholds a two-tiered system of justice, one for people who have economic resources and one for those who don’t.”

Shakeshaft said “making it a crime for people to sleep outside in public does not address the root causes and systemic failures that give rise to housing instability.” She said ordinance enforcement and citations, like the ones at issue in Grants Pass, result in disproportionate and perpetual police and legal system contacts that often result in fines, fees and possible incarceration, make it even more difficult for people to secure stable housing.

Similarly, Legal Action of Wisconsin found the court’s decision troubling.

In a news release, Legal Action of Wisconsin said the organization is deeply disappointed by the decision.

“Punishing homeless people for being homeless does not solve the crisis of homelessness,” Legal Action’s Housing Priority Coordinator Carmen Ayers said. “No solution will be effective unless it centers on the dignity of people experiencing housing instability.” 

The organization, like others that work to prevent homelessness, has called for increasing access to safe and affordable housing and preventing evictions as a more effective approach to what has become a growing problem nationwide.

Officials: No immediate change in Wausau

According to the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service, over 400 people live without permanent housing in the Wausau area.

In its 2023 report about community discussion on homelessness, the research organization said the actual number of unhoused people might be higher. “It is not known how many additional homeless individuals live in Marathon County beyond Wausau because there are no means to count them,” the report said.

City authorities said it is too early to understand the impact of the decision.

Mayor Doug Diny declined to say how he plans to address homelessness in the city and pointed the question to the City Council.

“Designated a Wausau City Council priority at their formation meeting, a series of Committee of the Whole meetings about homelessness (is) on the horizon,” he told Wausau Pilot & Review. “The specific Supreme Court decision you cite is a data point for their potential consideration on July 15th.”

Wausau’s population is similar to Grant Pass’s 40,000. City leaders are unclear whether the decision will direct any immediate changes to Wausau’s policy. The city, though, has hardened its position on the unhoused population at the urging of the Wausau Police Department, which has said it has been flooded with complaints from downtown businesses, public library officials and residents about homeless people who congregate in the area.

Wausau Police say they have collected videos that show criminal acts, including public defecation, drug use and vandalism in downtown parking ramps. Some people have had sex in public, while others have brandished weapons, alarming workers in the downtown area, police say. Some alders are urging the public to watch those videos to help them understand the scale of the problem.

“Given the ruling has just been published, city staff have not had the opportunity to discuss it,” Wausau Police Chief Matthew Barnes told this newspaper. “As a result, it would be premature to comment on how, or if this recent ruling will impact policy or enforcement.  I do not expect any immediate changes in our practices.”

Barnes said Wausau officers currently enforce an ordinance that prohibits camping in city parks, but follow a legal process that includes multiple notices, attempts to funnel offenders to resources, safeguarding personal property and cleanup efforts.

Marathon County District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon told Wausau Pilot that the DA’s Office will continue to collaborate with local law enforcement and community stakeholders to attempt to assess and address homelessness in the community. “This will continue to include programming facilitated through our Office that enhances public safety through interventions targeting the needs of individuals struggling with substance use and mental health disorders that may co-occur with being unhoused.” 

City Attorney Anne Jacobson did not respond to questions about how the decision would impact the city’s ordinances.

How many homeless residents wind up in jail?

While talk about removing encampments and implementing relevant ordinances have been long considered, those efforts picked up steam early last year. Police removed encampments beneath the Scott Street Bridge last April.

Between Jan. 1, 2023 and July 2, 2024, the Wausau Police Department issued 34 citations for being in a park after hours. Capt. Nathan Cihlar said the department issued 132 citations for trespassing or loitering in parking ramps in roughly the same time frame.

As for arrest records of residents with no permanent address, between Jan. 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024 police in Wausau made 272 custodial arrests and 55 charging referrals for new crimes, along with 115 arrests for probation violations. An additional 133 citations or summonses have also been issued for new crimes, city officials said.

Community Outreach Specialist Tracy Rieger’s monthly report on homelessness also shows some people in Marathon County jail are homeless.

The city has some daytime and nighttime shelters but critics say they are not adequate. Some shelters have strict rules of admission and deny shelter to those who do not comply with specific rules. In her May report, Rieger said 188 people lived in shelters, but said that number could be inflated since an individual might have lived in two different shelters in a single month.

Also in her report: About 20 percent of unhoused residents were living outdoors or in places “not meant for human habitation.” These are the people most likely to be punished in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, if the city chooses to act.

Homeless in U.S., Wisconsin on the rise

Nationwide, communities experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, according to a federal report issued in December.

As of December, about 653,000 people in the U.S. were homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007, the Associated Press reported. The total represents an increase of about 70,650 from a year earlier, the news agency said.

What’s more: people of color and the elderly are more likely to be homeless.

“People who identify as Black make up about 13% of the U.S. population but comprised 37% of all people experiencing homelessness,” the federal report states. “People who identify as Hispanic or Latino make up about 19% of the population but comprised about 33% of those experiencing homelessness. Also, more than a quarter of the adults experiencing homelessness were over age 54.”

Similarly, in Wisconsin, local agencies reported in April the state has 4,861 homeless individuals, an increase of 1.8 percent.

City officials will hold a Committee of the Whole meeting on July 15 to discuss Wausau’s approach to homelessness. The meeting is set for 6 p.m. at City Hall, 407 Grant St., Wausau.

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• At least 1 in 4 Wisconsin school districts received inquiries or requests to remove books from their shelves between Jan. 1, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2023.
• Wisconsin Watch was able to identify 667 instances in which a book was removed or restricted, which is 114 more than the list maintained by PEN America. That includes books that were temporarily removed pending a review, or moved from an elementary school library to a middle or high school library.
• “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, an autobiographical exploration of gender and sexuality that includes sexually explicit graphics, drew the most challenges and concerns. The vast majority of titles dealt with LGBTQ+ themes, gender, sexual development and race.
• Conservative groups, right-wing media and politicians made up a large portion of the requesters. Eleven “super requesters” who inquired about more than 15 books accounted for nearly three-quarters of the books that were challenged or questioned.

More than 100 Wisconsin school districts — 1 in 4 — fielded inquiries about books or formal requests to remove them since 2020, according to a Wisconsin Watch review of records obtained from all but two of the state’s 421 public school districts.

Many requests came from organized conservative groups and politicians rather than organic requests from parents concerned about required reading. In several cases, the school district didn’t even own the books someone wanted to remove.

Requesters involved with school board or state-level politics filed nearly half of the challenges and concerns. Book ban requests in one district sometimes rippled into nearby districts, fanned by viral social media posts and conservative media personalities. 

Records revealed a culture of hostility and division surrounding book-banning efforts and added stress for district administrators and library specialists who faced personal threats and saw their job responsibilities expand in unexpected ways. In some cases, school board members resigned following requests for book removals, citing resulting division and harm. Schools walked a tightrope in trying to appease upset parents while ensuring diversity and free speech standards for students.

A handful of “super requesters” seeking to remove more than 15 books made up nearly three-quarters of removal requests and concerns, often using information from right-wing media and lists compiled by national groups to formulate requests.

Requesters targeted books with LGBTQ+, sexually explicit and racial content, repeatedly alleging liberal bias and anti-Christian values. “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, an autobiographical exploration of gender and sexuality that includes sexually explicit graphics, drew the most challenges and concerns in the state. Ellen Hopkins, whose young adult novels featuring drugs and sexual themes frequently top national book ban lists, was the top author.

Wisconsin Watch’s findings are the most comprehensive look at attempts to ban books in the state since the pandemic, when remote learning gave some parents a closer look at what their students were being taught in public schools.

Experts say Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — among the most competitive battlegrounds in national politics — are particular hotbeds of book challenges as partisan actors use such tactics to energize their base. Tasslyn Magnusson, a Wisconsin-based program consultant with Freedom to Read at PEN America, called Wisconsin “one of the most dangerous states for book bans.”

“They are tipping point states in the election, which means we’re going to get so much money poured in here,” Magnusson said. “The governor can veto some of this crisis legislation, but then what happens is these groups and these efforts then change policy at the local level.”

Nearly 200 instances of book removals and restrictions revealed 

The records from every corner of the state showed 165 unique requesters raised questions about or formally sought to remove 1,617 books across 106 Wisconsin school districts between Jan. 1, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2023. That includes 625 formal challenges.

There were 679 titles, including classics such as “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “The Bluest Eye” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”; bestsellers such as “A Game of Thrones,” “The Kite Runner” and “Fifty Shades of Grey”; and in one case someone inquired about 12 books including Hillary Clinton’s “It Takes a Village” and Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl.” But the most frequent requests were for books about sex and LGBTQ+ themes such as “I am Jazz,” “It’s Perfectly Normal,” “Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens,” “Sex Is A Funny Word” and “This Book is Gay.”

Districts removed books or restricted them to older grades or parental permission in 190 instances, involving 127 titles. Most removals took place in southeast Wisconsin districts, particularly Waukesha, Kenosha, West Allis, Oak Creek-Franklin and Elmbrook.

The books “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir by George Johnson of growing up a queer Black man, and “Lucky,” a memoir by Alice Sebold involving a traumatic sexual assault, were either restricted or removed six times each, followed by “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky and “Tricks” by Hopkins at five each.

After Wisconsin Watch filed its requests, Elkhorn and Menomonee Falls removed or restricted pending an investigation an additional 477 books. Adding those to the Wisconsin Watch total, Wisconsin schools removed or restricted at least 667 books. That’s 114 more than the list PEN America maintains.

PEN America, the leading institution tracking book challenges, counts any content-based action taken against a book that leads to removals or restrictions, for any period of time, overriding the original choices of school boards, administrators and teachers. The count includes some situations in which schools later returned restricted books to shelves.

PEN America requires publicly available data to confirm book bans, such as school board minutes and local news reporting. Magnusson said far more efforts likely go untracked in rural Wisconsin, where many local newspapers no longer routinely report on school board actions.

Several districts initially charged a fee for Wisconsin Watch’s records request, but later agreed to provide the records without a charge. Two — the Superior and Oshkosh Area districts — refused to waive the charge.

Conservative groups and ‘super requesters’ lead the list 

Members of organized conservative groups facilitated removal requests in at least 14 districts, and many more districts received challenges from requesters who used lists of books compiled by national political groups. The largest groups involved were Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education, Mass Resistance and Parents’ Rights in Education.

In many cases, independent citizen requesters relied on lists compiled by larger national groups like booklooks.org and ratedbooks.org.

Eleven “super requesters” — those who raised concerns about or challenged 15 or more titles at a time — accounted for 73% of the targeted books. They often referred to lists of books originating in other districts or from online forums. Some had no children in the district. In nearly 60 cases, the school district didn’t own the book the requester sought to remove.

In addition to lists on national websites, super requesters used lists compiled by parents in other states. Two parents who collectively lodged a concern about 86 books in the Watertown Unified School District used IowaMamaBears.com and an anonymous list they called Parents List of Sexually Explicit Content.

The largest request from the period Wisconsin Watch requested records came from Lisa Anne Krueger in the Manitowoc School District, who on Oct. 10, 2023, inquired about 310 “aberrant obscene inappropriate pro-abortion and anti-Christian” books from a list, but did not follow through with a formal request. Krueger in February unsuccessfully ran for election to the Manitowoc School Board. She was the only requester in the district.

After Wisconsin Watch made its open records request in October, Melissa Bollinger in the Elkhorn Area School District challenged 444 books on Nov. 30, 2023, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

A district policy prompted the temporary removal of the books, and following review, administrators placed or maintained restrictions on 135 books. Prior to her challenge, the district had only received two removal requests, both resulting in removals.

Requesters often involved in politics

At least 849 inquiries and formal challenges to books — more than half compiled by Wisconsin Watch — came from a school board member or candidate, another local politician, or someone otherwise heavily involved in local conservative activism.

The most prominent such lawmaker was Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, who in March 2022 asked 12 districts if they possessed a list of 51 books, according to his staff. The list was compiled by an Eau Claire parent who previously spoke out against COVID-19 masking efforts and equity training materials. The books addressed gender, sexual and racial identity, and some contained sexually explicit or graphic content. Only eight of the districts provided records showing James’ requests, so only those 408 were included in the Wisconsin Watch count.

“Nothing more came out of the request besides simple information gathering,” a James spokeswoman said. “We did NOT follow up with the schools after the fact about removing the books, and we did NOT pursue any legislation or oversight after the request was fulfilled. … James really just wanted to know what age groups the books were available for, if they were available at all.”

In the Mequon-Thiensville district, supporters of an unsuccessful fall 2021 effort to recall school board members requested the removal of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie from libraries on Sept. 30, 2021, saying it included “pornography” and “racist” content. Requesters Curt and Torri Woda and Dennis Becker, along with Moms for Liberty’s Scarlett Johnson and Amber Schroeder, who helped support the request, also took part in the recall movement based on concerns over pandemic restrictions and what members called critical race theory. 

The request became part of the recall conversation after incumbent candidate Akram Kahn told a Fox News reporter that “the goal post has been moving since last August, it's been masks, open the schools, and now we are talking about banning books in the district.” His comment prompted Curt Woda to accuse board members of citing the complaint for political gain and to “discredit the Restore MTSD movement.”

“To characterize the concern from my family about this specific book as being a part of the recall movement is completely false, but now you have made it such,” Woda wrote in an Oct. 25 email to Kahn and other board members.

Conservative media fuel book ban fever

Conservative media played a role in requests for removal in at least 12 districts.

A July 20, 2023, Libs of TikTok post received more than 875,000 views after it claimed the Kimberly Area School District offered “This Book is Gay” to students. Kimberly Superintendent Bob Mayfield told the Post Crescent he found out about the social media post after state Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, sought an explanation. In addition to three requests sent to the district and two media inquiries, he received hundreds of messages on Twitter in the following days, mostly from outside the community, he told the Post Crescent.

But the district owned no physical copies of the book. A district official said the Wisconsin School District Library Consortium, composed of 250 school districts, offered an online version of the book, but no Kimberly student had ever checked it out. All e-books in grades 7-12 are protected by age restrictions, though a synopsis of all e-book titles is available if searched.

A similar, more aggressive scenario played out in the Kenosha School District.

After a Sept. 3, 2023, Libs of TikTok article on the district described concerns about several books, social media spurred waves of removal requests throughout nearby districts.

Kevin Mathewson of the far-right blog Kenosha County Eye sent emails on Sept. 11, 2023, to two district administrators, noting that book removal requests put Kenosha in national headlines. He asked whether the district planned to remove four titles critics had flagged. 

Bristol School District #1 Administrator Jack Musha responded that the district had “a few of the titles” in its library and has a “very specific policy in regards to book reviews.” In his response, Mathewson asked: “Do you think liberals like you have a mental disorder or really believe in the ideals of the democratic party?” He then asked Musha to provide a photo of himself, adding, “When I write about you liking kids to watch porn, people will want a face to go with your pedophile-like behavior.”

Michelle Garven, Trevor-Wilmot Consolidated Grade School District administrator, told Mathewson none of the books were available to check out at district libraries, but families could search for titles through the Wisconsin School District Library Consortium.

Mathewson vowed to write “a story about not only how you allow pornography in your district, but that you don't want the public to know about it.” He later wrote he was “very eager to publish a story about your sexual deviance” and added, “Don't make me sue you and embarrass you further because when I write my article people are going to be wondering why you want kids to be exposed to pornography.”

His emails and reporting prompted Garven to send a cease and desist letter to Mathewson.

Books with LGBTQ+, sexually explicit content targeted

Most books targeted for removal in Wisconsin explored themes related to identity or coming of age, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ and racial storylines. Many also dealt with abuse, mental health or grief, Wisconsin Watch found. Data from PEN America show that restriction efforts nationally overwhelmingly targeted books about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.

“Gender Queer,” the state’s most targeted book according to the Wisconsin Watch analysis, also topped the American Library Association’s national list of challenged books in 2023 and was fifth on PEN’s list of challenges during the 2022-23 school year.

The book drew at least 41 formal challenges and six additional instances in which people expressed concerns. The Baraboo School District in early October 2023 fielded 32 challenges to the book. District officials said they were not sure what prompted the brief surge of restriction requests.

Requesters claimed the book aimed to “indoctrinate,” “corrupt,” “pervert” and “deceive” children, “promote pedophilia and sexuality,” “tell children they can be queer” and teach kids “to become pedophiles” and “sex offenders.” One requester cited Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 as justification for the book’s removal, adding that “the Bible calls this lifestyle sinful.” Another said, “In God’s eyes this is so wrong.” Requesters said the district should burn the book. One parent called for jailing whoever put the book in the library.

Baraboo district officials, however, said they couldn’t find the book in their inventory. Two other districts — Kenosha and the Sheboygan Area — removed the book.

Magnusson said critics of “Gender Queer” tend to focus on short excerpts and discuss them out of context. 

The novel’s most explicit section, frequently cited in requests, shows two characters using a sex toy to perform oral sex. The scene is “about consent and choosing not to have sex,” Magnusson noted.

“When we evaluate books just by what seems the most outrageous, we're missing that point,” Magnusson said. “The story is about saying no and saying, ‘I don't want to do that, that is not for me,’ and it's actually a very valuable, caring story about learning that you can say those things in your life.”

Opponents of “Gender Queer” and other books targeted in Wisconsin expressed concerns that sexually explicit scenes, regardless of how little of a storyline they make up, could expose their children to sensitive topics before they’re ready. Many book restriction advocates said they would prefer that parents instead discuss such issues with children.

Two sets of parents in the Silver Lake J1 School District complained after a fourth-grade teacher added the book “Love Makes a Family” by Sophie Beer to her Amazon wishlist.

“The question almost inevitably will come up in the classroom of why two daddies are in the bed and both my husband and I absolutely do not feel like it is the place of the teacher to be explaining this to our child,” one parent wrote, referring to an illustration of a same-sex couple. She added that she feels like “political views, religion, and how we raise our own families need to stay out of schools.”

Supporters of the targeted books applaud their affirming storylines that help teenagers navigate their identity. Jennifer Handrick, a Chippewa Falls art educator and Cadott School District parent, wrote in support of keeping four challenged LGBTQ+ books in the school district.

“I understand that many of these books are for young children, and that makes people uncomfortable, but creating exposure to LBGTQ+ journeys at the ages where kids start to feel ‘different’ not only creates a level of normalcy being around members of the LBGTQ+ community, it tells those who feel ‘different’ that there is nothing wrong with them,” Handrick wrote. “Most importantly, the books might give them the courage to talk to a trusted adult and begin to build the critical support system they need.”

Books exploring race also targeted 

Wisconsin is home to some of the nation’s starkest disparities between white and Black residents in education, public health, housing, criminal justice and income. But book challengers also objected to a range of books that explore issues surrounding race. Those include "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and “Stamped (for Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You,” an adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s history of racism.

The Wautoma Area School District removed student access to “An American Story” by Kwame Alexander in October of 2023 following a challenge that called the book “very racially charged and frightening for elementary school kids” and said it “depicts Americans as being monsters to Africans.” In the decision letter, District Administrator Jewel Mucklin wrote that “not all students have the emotional or intellectual awareness to process and understand some of the images in the book or the content of the story.”

The novel tells the story of American slavery through the journey of a child navigating the complexities of identity amid racial tension in contemporary America.

The Muskego-Norway School Board in July 2022 blocked the recommendation “When the Emperor Was Divine" by Julie Otsuka, a novel on the internment of Japanese Americans, from being taught in a 10th-grade accelerated English class. The decision prompted criticism from the Japanese American Citizens League, the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Coalition of Wisconsin and Otsuka herself, as well as a petition calling for the book’s approval, which was signed by 362 people, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Others started a community book club and made the novel its first read.​​

Emotional toll beyond count

An increasing part of library specialists' and district administrators’ jobs has become dealing with requests. Records showed hundreds of internal emails related to scheduling reconsideration meetings and addressing parent concerns. Administrators oversee books across numerous buildings and are struggling with the balancing act of appeasing parent concerns while maintaining appropriate grade interest levels for thousands of other students. 

Districts’ criteria took into account a book’s alignment with curriculum and state standards, the readability and appeal of texts to diverse students, the grade-level appropriateness, the significance and reputation of a book’s author, popular appeal and reviews from sites such as Scholastic and Common Sense Media.

“I think there's no librarian in America right now that isn't having some amount of emotional distress over what's going on,” said EveryLibrary Associate Director Peter Bromberg, who has tracked bills around the country targeting librarians. 

Bromberg said more teachers and librarians are leaving the profession early as a result. 

“There's an emotional toll to this that doesn't show up on a … spreadsheet of how many books are being banned,” Bromberg said.

Over 100 Wisconsin school districts fielded inquiries, challenges to books 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: 3 minutes

A youth development manager focused on improving schools faces a career telecommunications professional prioritizing broadband expansion in the Madison-area 47th Assembly District Democratic primary on Aug. 13.

The contest between Joe Maldonado, a current Fitchburg alderman elected in 2020, and Randy Udell, a former alderman who served from 2020 to 2024, will determine who will represent the district come January 2025. No Republicans registered to run in the overwhelmingly Democratic district, which encompasses Fitchburg, Stoughton and part of McFarland in Dane County.

It’s one of 13 Assembly districts statewide without a Republican candidate in the fall election, six of which are in increasingly Democratic Dane County. The others are in Milwaukee, Beloit and Racine.

While they were colleagues on the city council, Maldonado and Udell are running two distinct campaigns.

Maldonado is billing himself as the candidate who has firsthand knowledge of the challenges facing the state’s public schools and Wisconsin students. 

Maldonado’s experience in youth work for almost 20 years and role as a member of the Verona Area School District Supertintendents’ Parent Advisory Committee grounds his campaign in educational needs, he said. He also said one of his top priorities as a policymaker is keeping residents “well informed.”

“Folks really want to ensure that kids have what they need,” he told Wisconsin Watch, expressing concerns about student mental health. He also said the state should legalize cannabis to use its revenue to financially support school districts.

Udell is billing himself as a policymaker with real world experience working on what he said is one of the district’s biggest needs: broadband expansion.

“Even in the rural areas that have farmers, they run a business, it’s a big business and they all need (the) internet,” Udell, who also serves on the Dane County Board and worked as an engineer with AT&T for almost 30 years, told Wisconsin Watch. “And I hear this over and over again, they want broadband.”

Broadband in Stoughton comes down to affordability, Stoughton Mayor Tom Swadley said. While many people have access, they often grapple over choosing health care or day care over broadband because of the high cost. 

“When you get out in the rural (areas), there are some real challenges, and many of the students that go to our school district live in the rural (areas), and for them to be able to access broadband is really important for our education system and for business owners as well,” he said. 

Swadley said in an interview the state funding formula is not a “sustainable” model for school districts to be able to recruit and retain talent, he said. Swadley is favoring Udell in the race, but said “both would be great candidates.”

“Certainly the education has been underfunded. Under Gov. Evers, there’s been some significant improvements, but we’re still not where we need to be,” Swadley said. “The public school system has really been under attack, and I think both the candidates will work to try to address that issue.”

Udell said his experience as chair of Fitchburg’s finance committee sets him apart from Maldonado, who serves on the bicycle and personnel committees. He also has managed multimillion-dollar budgets since being elected treasurer of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 2015. 

“When it comes to finance, budgeting is crucial. And I’m able to do that,” he said.

But as colleagues for four years Maldonado said he disagreed with some of Udell’s spending preferences.

“When our city was considering our proposed police facility in Fitchburg, it came $15 million over budget,” Maldonado said. “I not only advocated for better informing our residents about the process through mailers and through community engagement events or informational sessions, I also voted against the budget amendment because it had not been fleshed out.” 

Ultimately, the race could be determined by who connects better with communities in the district, Swadley said.

“We’ve always had representation that was visible and active in our community, whether it was the Assembly or the Senate,” the mayor said. “To me, that’s really the most important thing is to have representatives that are engaged and responsive.”

In Democratic primary, candidates emphasize broadband, education 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.

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.”

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER AND NEVER MISS A STORY

Email Address

Submit

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.

---

LIKE OUR WORK? SUPPORT US SO WE CAN DO MORE: CLICK HERE TO DONATE

The post Western Wisconsin congressman compares judge in Trump case to Nazi, calls him “Communist Scum” after jury convicts on all counts appeared first on The Badger Project.

---

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.

---

LIKE OUR WORK? SUPPORT US SO WE CAN DO MORE: CLICK HERE TO DONATE

The post ‘Wisconsin does not, and should not, have secret police’ – The Badger Project sues state DOJ for full list of law enforcement officers appeared first on The Badger Project.

---

‘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.

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• 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

Click here to read highlights from the story

• 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.