Inside Wisconsin Politics

Court throws a curveball into absentee voting, letting the Trump administration move forward with more restrictive rules.

But Wisconsin election officials say we're a long ways from November, and there will be more lawsuits.

This is in Wisconsin politics.

I'm Zac Schultz, filling in for Shawn Johnson here with my colleagues, Anya van Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire.

Hello to both of you.

Hey.

On Monday, the U.S.

Supreme Court's shadow docket struck again, releasing an unsigned opinion that allows the Trump administration to go forward with orders for the Postal Service to create rules restricting who can send an absentee ballot through the mail.

Ana.

This started as an executive order last spring.

Wisconsin was one of the states that sued to stop it.

So where are we now?

I mean, we're still in the court.

So this was the court did not rule on sort of the merits of the executive order themselves.

They ruled on the timing of the lawsuit that Wisconsin and other states filed, essentially saying that because the Postal Service rule has not yet been put in place, they can't argue that they have been harmed.

Meanwhile, the Postal Service did author and publish the rule that would go into effect as soon as the order is cleared.

And so now things go back to a lower court than they will go back to the Supreme Court, which will of weigh in on whether the executive branch, the president, is allowed to make such a kind of sweeping change to state elections, which are, according to the Constitution, sort of supposed to be decided by the states.

So nothing happening at this exact moment.

But everyone should be a little bit worried and aware of what's.

we're ten weeks out from the midterm elections.

And so one of the things that we're hearing from election administrators is sort of, well, what are we supposed to be doing in the meantime?

They are in the process of printing out these ballots, ballots that go to overseas, and military voters need to be sent out 45 days in advance of the election.

So that's like, I think September 19th.

So all this stuff needs to be happening, this nitty gritty administrative stuff.

And meanwhile, they're trying to figure out just like how the rules function.

Rich Republicans have an interesting relationship with absentee balloting going back years where they've talked about restricting it, but they also love to use it, including Republican nominee Tom Tiffany.

And President Donald Trump.

I believe it was reported, used it this year as well.

So it's an interesting paradox.

So going back to 2020, President Donald Trump has made these these false claims about widespread voter fraud that that resulted in a stolen election.

But part of that, of course, was his railing against mail in absentee voting.

And he said it's just a prime opportunity for fraud to happen.

So many of his supporters have bought into that.

And here in Wisconsin, we've got this paradox where you've got the state party chair, Bryan Schimming, the GOP party chair, who he said, well, I was one of the first state party chairs in the country to advocate for absentee voting and early voting as a way to kind of match Democrats who have been really successful with that.

In terms of getting out the vote early ahead of Election Day, less work on Election Day.

At the same time, you've got people within the party that want to impeach the state's election top election official Megan Wolf, they've they've went after Republican speaker, outgoing Republican Speaker of the Assembly, Robin Vos, for not trying to decertify the election, etc.

So it's really kind of a paradox between those two worlds in the Wisconsin GOP.

So anyway, what are clerks doing right now?

I guess, in Wisconsin history, we've had a lot of lawsuits that happen right before an election, but usually those involve state law.

This would be seemingly a much larger change than one that they really wouldn't have any impact on.

Yeah.

Well, Wisconsin also is unique because it has sort of the most Dietsche federated election administration system in the country.

So a lot of other places, you know, it's county clerks who run administration who administer elections.

Here it is local clerks.

And so they are all, again, doing this kind of nitty gritty work of printing out the ballots and checking their lists.

And there's all of this work that goes on kind of behind the scenes to prepare for this.

Every clerk I've spoken to says that like as soon as one election ends, the next one begins for them in terms of their work.

And so the primary just ended.

They're all getting ready for the general.

And so as these rules kind of shift and as they're waiting again for the back and forth from the courts, it really kind of raises the question of what are like, how do they follow the rules if they don't yet know what the rules are?

And especially for something like this, with the Postal Service being in charge of potentially determining who is allowed to receive a mailing ballot and who is not, they could accidentally violate that rule if they're not very, very careful.

And so they're kind of waiting to see.

So we are just kind of in this wait and see moment when again, they actually need to be kind of hurrying up just to get stuff like formatted for the printer.

Again, this very administrative details that how we all vote.

And there have been concerns about how the Postal Service will handle absentee ballots, especially under the Trump administration, are both two separate Trump administrations.

There have conspiracies about whether the Postal Service will lose the ballots, whether they'll be processing them on time, or are there enough postal workers to handle all of these routes.

And so I know that the parties in the past have told their voters, hey, if you're worried, make sure you deliver it in person.

Rich, have we seen any of these groups, whether the Democrats or Republicans trying to make sure that their voters are aware, even if these don't happen, like, hey, maybe it's safest to hand deliver these, or maybe you do absentee in person if you can.

Yeah.

And also some of the clerks.

So the Wisconsin Elections clerks this year, I believe.

And anyway, the results came out this year.

And a lot of them, the majority of them did mention there has been longer than expected delays with regard to absentee voting.

This was in the April Supreme Court election, but so some of them in the summary of the survey responses from those clerks have said that people are just saying, well, I. I won't even try to absentee vote.

I'll go a different route.

And so some of the clerks were also advising that they consider in-person absentee voting or other forms, which is really something.

And, you know, I got a chance to ask Republican congressman and candidate for governor, Tom Tiffany, about this specific executive order from the president and what he thought about it.

He deflected and kind of went along the lines of saying, most clerks do a great job.

But he said some, without naming them, have gone beyond what the color of the law dictates.

So without naming them, we can assume that it might be Dane County and Milwaukee County that he has an issue with, because we've heard that from other Republicans.

So it's just a really interesting situation.

And and we are we're right on the cusp of this election.

So this uncertainty definitely has got a lot of eyebrows raised.

So this has only happened in the last, obviously, day or so.

How much can this change the conversation in the gubernatorial election?

Because for the past few weeks since the candidates have been set, it's been about data centers, and that's been the driving force of Tiffany attacking David Crowley and Crowley trying to defend and put it back in his candidacy.

But could this change the topic and bring up those connections Tom Tiffany has to Donald Trump, or the fact that these almost all come out of election conspiracies from 2020?

Can this be an opening to change the narrative of what people are talking about?

To Rich's point?

You know, I think one of the consequences of something like this isn't just that it's confusing for election officials, but that it can kind of sow confusion and doubt among voters.

And so for voters who are kind of already concerned about American democracy, who do tend to skew democratic, this is kind of part of that pattern for voters who maybe have questions about the 2020 election, or are Trump supporters much like Tom Tiffany, right, who was somebody who voted to decertify 2020 election results in certain other states?

This is just kind of an example of of the chaos that they say is just kind of baked into the system.

And so it kind of gives them an opportunity if things don't necessarily go their way in November to point to the shifting rules, the back and forth, the courts, the judges as a reason for that.

And so at the very least, you know, even if it does kind of resolve in a way that allows administrators to, to do their job sort of without a hitch, it still creates this sense of chaos in the kind of basis of our democracy which is voting.

So, yeah.

So rich, do you think Republicans want to change the conversation here, or is this strictly the Democrats would love to be able to pin this back, even if it causes confusion and say, this is what you get with Tom, Tiffany and Donald Trump?

Yeah.

It seems like Democrats are much more eager to talk about this sort of thing than Republicans.

When Tom Tiffany has been asked about his 2020 votes and his signing on to a Texas lawsuit that year that would have tossed out Wisconsin's votes in the presidential election, he just defers like he'll quickly say, Joe Biden is president, and then he moves on.

So based on that, and also based on some Republican commentary I've seen from people in Wisconsin, they definitely don't want Tom Tiffany talking about this.

They don't necessarily want him talking about issues that President Trump is pushing that are unpopular.

But you can rest assured that Democrats are very excited to talk about this development from the Supreme Court, the president's attempts, his plans, etc.

because we got a press release first thing this morning about it.

So another topic that could come up in the governor's race that we're paying attention to.

Governor Evers, commutation Advisory Board, met for the first time last week to hear a dozen from a dozen inmates who have applied to have their sentences reduced.

Ana what do we know about this board?

And then how will that filter out into Tom Tiffany versus David Crowley?

Why would it have anything to do with them?

time that this board has met since 1995.

That was under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.

And so this has been sort of a priority of Governor Evers is to to make some changes to criminal justice in Wisconsin.

He has not delivered on many of those.

But this was kind of one of his final acts in office, is to potentially reduce the sentence of grant commutations to some incarcerated people.

And so this is a big deal, in part because crime is just always an issue in any election.

I mean, we've seen it even with Supreme Court races where they don't really have any, you know, role in fighting crime.

But crime is just something that motivates voters.

And so this issue of potentially, you know, lessening the sentence of people, some of whom were convicted for nonviolent crimes, some of whom were convicted for violent crimes, according to a series of kind of criteria, including they've served a majority of their sentence, they've proven that they've sort of rehabilitated in certain ways.

But all of that can be the type of thing that Republicans in particular, who like to say Democrats are kind of easy on crime, can really seize upon.

And, you know, I'm from Massachusetts.

And so I grew up learning about sort of the Willie Horton case, which was a person who was released from prison, went on to commit another very violent crime.

a little bit before my time.

But I grew up learning about this.

And that is the kind of thing that can really sink elections.

And so I think as this is going forward, you know, it is popular among voters of many different stripes to do some sort of criminal justice reform.

But when you kind of look at what that actually looks like, it can be a bit of a tightrope walk for politicians.

bring up Willie Horton because that came out in a Democratic primary in 1988.

It was al Gore versus Dukakis, and then it ended up playing a major role in the presidential campaign in 88, where it was Lee Atwater, who Atwater, who was one of the first negative ad gurus out there, ran it against Dukakis.

And it was considered one of the things that showed weakness in him and why he went from high approval ratings to losing that election in 1988.

And, Rich, obviously, this is have a history of looking at as crime in Milwaukee, and especially people of color.

We've already started to see some of those connections.

They're trying to draw between David Crowley and any bad thing that happens in Milwaukee County.

It's a little bit of like throwing spaghetti at the wall.

See what sticks right now.

But this is definitely something they will use against him, even if it's the weakest of links.

Yeah.

That's right.

This is something that has proven to be able to stick in the past.

I mean, I think back to 2022, the US Senate race between Republican incumbent and now Senator Ron Johnson and former lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes.

That race, the Republicans supporting Johnson and Johnson himself just blanketed the Wisconsin airwaves with ads about how Barnes was, you know, about defunding the police or he was anti ICE and he was weak on crime.

I mean, these sort of things.

Again, a US senator doesn't have a ton to do in the, you know, directly with crime fighting.

But these are the kind of topics that that stir up people's emotions.

Also, back in 2022, the Marquette University Law School did a survey that I found really interesting.

It showed that, you know, 77% of respondents said they feel safe in their daily activities, but 85% reported being either somewhat concerned or very concerned about increasing crime.

So that kind of shows how the emotions can get in the way of numbers on paper.

And yeah, it's interesting.

The crime statistics came out for Wisconsin showing a decrease, as we've seen nationally, including in Milwaukee, but there's still going to be allegations.

We saw it with videos of incidents at the state fair.

And all of a sudden the connection we saw was Republicans saying, This is David Crowley Wisconsin.

And I didn't know that the Milwaukee County exec was in charge of the state fair and like, making sure everyone stayed in line there.

But this will keep coming up, right?

Yeah.

I mean, as Rich said, statistics and people's feelings kind of have almost nothing to do with one another.

In fact, there's been research that shows that as crime rates have steadily gone down, minus the Covid spike, you know, from the 90s, coverage of crime has gone up in local media.

And so it gives the impression to a lot of people.

You know, I talk to people from outside of Milwaukee who are convinced that it's kind of on fire just 100% of the time.

And so if you feel that way, it kind of doesn't matter what the statistics say.

And you can really leverage that concern, especially for somebody like David Crowley, who is so Milwaukee, right, that he is of Milwaukee, he is the county executive.

The Tom Tiffany campaign will try to tie him to every single problem that Milwaukee has, including crime rates that are higher than elsewhere in the state, because that is just kind of the nature of urban centers.

want to talk about today and talking about changing the topic in the governor's race, if we ever get away from data centers being this primary driver, there is the of these tariffs coming in.

And we have a couple different aspects of.

One is Trump is escalating a new trade war with Canada.

And we're also seeing questions about whether he would allow imported beef coming in from South America to come into the market and reducing tariffs there.

And rich tariffs have an interesting another interesting aspect of Republicans of when Trump imposes them, that they don't change the cost according to Republicans.

But when he lowers them, it's supposed to lower the cost of beef coming in.

But what's been the reaction to some of these different tariff war battles going on?

So again, this is something that I would imagine Republicans aren't excited to talk about, but Tom Tiffany has in the past, he's he's talked about how the president is doing these these things, these tariffs in order to reshore manufacturing in Wisconsin, he said.

The media doesn't talk about the success stories.

He mentioned something about a Harley-Davidson plant, something happening with that in Tomahawk.

So they don't want to talk about the downsides of that.

I did see something I honestly wasn't able to go through the whole article, but that Tom Tiffany might have been creating some distance between the president on this latest batch with regard to Canada.

But again, I'm not as not super well versed on that.

It's definitely a topic, though, with affordability being top concern among voters in general, and Democrats are going to try to make hay with it.

And Anya, in our last minute here talking about these tariff issues, I mean, Democrats were quick to pounce on this, Governor Evers saying we have a $7 billion in trade with Canada.

Our closest neighbor.

Like these have real world implications, not just political implications.

Right.

But again, it's sort of it's the work of politicians to kind of draw those connections and make people understand, you know, when you go to the grocery store, it doesn't say like, this came from X, Y, Z. You just sort of pick up your eggs and your milk and you go on your way.

And then likewise, especially kind of further out on the supply chain, we get a ton of wood from Canada, for example.

I don't see like a sticker on this table kind of explaining how this table came to be.

And so it's easy to feel kind of distanced as just a normal person going through the world from some of these policies.

So it's the job of Democrats if they want to make hay with this, as Rich said, to make that hay, which is also involves a little bit of complicated explaining of sort of geopolitical maneuvering, which is a little tricky in like a 32nd ad, as we've talked about.

have the money to run those 32nd ads over and over to explain perhaps nuanced geopolitical maneuvers in an election.

Well, that is all the time we have for today.

Our colleague Shawn Johnson will be back next week.

This has been inside Wisconsin politics.

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