Wisconsin Megathread v3: GOP in MASSIVE DISARRAY

[Badger]

If you had shown me just that map, I would have guessed something like Neubauer +6 or 7.

Yep, MKE screwing the pooch again.

Also, are those 200ish precincts out early votes? If so, this is not over yet.

I don't know about early votes but I read on the twitterverse that absentees have already been counted. Most of the outstanding precincts are the Appleton area.

Those Outagamie precincts are slowly coming in. Kaukauna (Appleton suburb) had Hagedorn getting stomped, Seymour (weirdly small rural town) was a near-tie. I be Appleton proper precincts will favor Neubauer when they come in but obviously nowhere near the Madison-level numbers she would need to make up a 4K vote shortfall.

e: https://www.outagamie.org/government/departments-a-e/county-clerk/elections/election-results look for the precincts prefixed with "C of" (for city of).

Thanks

Candidate   Percent   Votes
Brian Hagedorn (Nonpartisan)     50.2%   588,823
Lisa Neubauer (Nonpartisan)     49.8%   584,325
3535 of 3638 (97%) Precincts Reporting, 1,173,148 Total Votes

HAGEDORN MY KING!!!!!!

You call that bigot your "king"? I thought you were better than that.

He's not.

[Badger]

Shockingly there are now 6 Assembly Republicans that now support legislation to implement Iowa style redistricting reform.

https://twitter.com/SpudLovr/status/1219263352737861634?s=20

Well, that's good!

Forgive my cynicism, but what's the catch?

[Badger]

If Karofsky wins by the skin of her teeth, you can thank Bernie Sanders for staying in until Wisconsin voted, despite how endlessly members of this forum nonstop demanded he drop out sooner.

No sarcasm, I will be the first to do so.

[Badger]

Is there anything stopping the local governments of Madison and Milwaukee from mailing ballots to every registered voter the way those other cities did? If no, seems like a no-brainer.

$$$

Yep, Bayside has about 4400 people, Whitefish Bay (Called Whiteman's Bay) has around 13500, compare that to the amount of people in Milwaukee and Madison. Plus, those two burbs have money too.

Arguably a prime example of spending money to make money? Places like Milwaukee are obviously going to be much worse off financially in so many ways with another 4 years of Trump.

Burns me to no end that this is done on a municipal rather than statewide basis. What a blatant equal protection violation.

Hopefully one that Justice Karkofsky can help remedy.

[Badger]

^^ That is one way for states to mitigate turnout/safety issues without relying on changes to the law from Congress or the state legislature. It might even encourage Republicans to make the process easier because if all the major cities do it, they won't want to be left out. On the other hand, they could just as easily seek to prevent cities from doing this.

In some states, it might not be a viable option if the absentee request rules are too onerous. For instance, I'm not sure if Texas has any plans to make fear of getting COVID-19 a valid excuse in requesting an absentee ballot. For TX, these are the only excuses listed:

https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/voter/reqabbm.shtml

To be eligible to vote early by mail in Texas, you must:

    be 65 years or older;
    be disabled;
    be out of the county on election day and during the period for early voting by personal appearance; or
    be confined in jail, but otherwise eligible.

The bare minimum compromise in Congress should be to at least force states to allow people to request absentee ballots if they fear getting sick. Most states already allow this, so it's really just for the holdouts .

https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2020/04/texas-officials-try-to-clarify-who-can-vote-by-mail-but-they-might-not-be-able-to-just-say-everyone/

In their advisory, state officials said, "the Election Code defines ‘disability’ to include ‘a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on election day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter’s health.’ (Sec. 82.002).”

Officials said any voter who meets that definition must be able to apply for ballot by mail.

AG Paxton disagrees and might arrest/charge anyone that says otherwise.

https://twitter.com/srl/status/1250508771190849536?s=20

Yeah, Republican AGs in Texas have used their office like a club against any group attempting to mass register voters, especially Hispanics, using the most nominal technical violations at pretexts for injunctions, restraining orders, the lot.

I shouldn't say all groups. White evangical churches who engaged in voter drives apparently never dealt with any legal problems whatsoever.

[Badger]

The way the Wisconsin legislature is gerrymandered is borderline 3rd world banana republic level of authoritarianism from the GOP and getting a chance to root it out and return the legislatures to the people is equally as important to me tonight as protecting the right to choose.

I'm just so happy, good choice Wisconsin!

[Badger]

Man, those "nobody will care about Dobbs except for partisans" takes have aged like milk.

I didn’t expect the republicans to handle this issue so incompetently . Turns out they handled it just like they did with Obamacare in 2017

They didn't " handle it incompetently". Your party is dominated by right wing wannabe Taliban fascists whose views on most issues are grossly unpopular.

[Badger]

Wtf is this? Lol!

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/patrickdmarley/status/1686787706427260950?s=46

Okay, I'm absolutely thrilled that one of the most gerrymandered states in the country is going to receive electoral Justice with prompt redistricting, and that said redistricting need not wait until the next decennial census. However, what's the legal theory behind forcing half of the state senate to run for re-election only halfway through their four-year term?

[Badger]

This certainly looks how sane and functioning democracies work.

How does Wisconsin, at least one heart of the Progressive movement, not have a robust initiative and referendum process?

Voters had a chance 100+ years ago but they shot it down as no party really made a case for it, and the Dems/GOP were publicly against it. Probably a good example of voters not really thinking too hard about what they were voting for.

Never go against a ballot initiative amendment. It's rare for a legislature to offer that and if you turn it down once, you probably won't get another opportunity. Lawmakers hate sharing power.

The counterpoint is that if you vote for a ballot initiative amendment, you'll be stuck with ballot initiatives forever. I can't think of a better reason to vote against it.

I guess it depends how you look at it. Initiatives have been a key driver for marijuana legalization, and we'd never be where we are without it. It's also allowed voters in some states to end gerrymandering and roll back voter restrictions. Granted, it gets abused as well at times, but to me personally, it's well worth it. There are so many policies that never would have had a chance without voters being able to put it to a vote themselves.

Not to mention that, just like prohibition, the voters can choose to repeal any initiative they initially passed. Without voter referendums, they're basically stuck and effed by the legislature however the latter chooses, especially with a state as gerrymandered as wisconsin.