Author: Wisconsin Watch

As Claire Woodall-Vogg stood in the middle of an empty Central Count facility days before the Nov. 3 election, it wasn’t just the national spotlight on the city of Milwaukee or the swirling claims of voter fraud that weighed heavily on her mind. It was the frustration that she, and hundreds of other Milwaukee election workers, were facing an unprecedented pile of absentee ballots — and no permission to process them. For years, Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, and other election officials have pushed for absentee vote processing to start before Election Day. While momentum on...

As Wisconsin businesses shuttered this spring to slow the spread of COVID-19, jobless filings and phone calls flooded the state Department of Workforce Development — too quickly for staffers to keep up. But DWD Secretary Caleb Frostman remained optimistic In a May 4 email, Frostman told Unemployment Insurance Division Administrator Mark Reihl to “hang in there.” “If we can get through May, I think we will be cooking with gas with all the new people on board and call centers up and running,” Frostman wrote. Three days days later, Frostman emailed Reihl before a meeting with the state’s Unemployment...

The president’s team wants to toss 170,000 in-person absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, experts call the effort a long shot. It may feel like 2016 all over again for some Wisconsin election officials: a presidential contender wins by about a 20,000-vote margin, there is a nearly even partisan divide and with Thanksgiving around the corner, workers are beginning a recount. But this recount differs in one key respect. President Donald Trump’s campaign is not just looking for an accurate count of votes. The primary aim is to separate out and invalidate tens of thousands of ballots in...