Author: Wisconsin Watch

Despite smaller turnout, activists saw hopeful signs of determination as Black voters cast ballots, amid a pandemic and barriers to get-out-the-vote efforts. Early in the morning on Election Day, Angela Lang stood in a conference room in the offices of BLOC — Black Leaders Organizing for Communities — on Milwaukee’s north side, addressing nearly two dozen staff members and volunteers. It was the first time the team was together in the building since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, said Lang, the group’s executive director. They were gathered on Nov. 3 to build on months of community...

The bipartisan commission that oversees voting in the swing state has deadlocked along party lines on key issues, resulting in inconsistency, turmoil, and delays. As ballots began pouring in by mail after Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, local election officials became increasingly perplexed over which ones to count. A federal judge had ordered that ballots arriving as many as six days after the election should be accepted, but the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed that window, ruling that ballots should be counted only if they were postmarked by Election Day. The trouble was that many ballots were arriving without postmarks, or...

“We used to be like the gold standard of voting,” said one advocate. Changes in the past decade — and now a pandemic — have added hurdles to voting. Melody McCurtis and Danell Cross start their day early on a recent sunny Sunday morning, going door to door in their neighborhood northwest of downtown Milwaukee. Leaders of the nonprofit Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, the mother and daughter make their way slowly along the route wearing masks and using a bullhorn to maintain distancing as they offer free food, household supplies — and information about how to vote. At one...

The best defense from rumors, hoaxes and propaganda is knowing what to expect ahead of Election Day. News that three trays of mail had been discovered in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin, recently spread on social media and evolved into a national talking point for conservative outlets such as Breitbart. President Donald Trump’s administration used the story in its ongoing campaign to sow distrust in voting by mail. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany cited it as evidence of “a system that’s subject to fraud,” and Trump claimed that mail ballots were being “dumped in rivers” and “creeks” during...