Posts tagged "wisconsin recall"
206,000 WI Residents Request Absentee Ballots for the Recall
MADISON, WI – More than 206,000 Wisconsin residents have already requested absentee ballots or voted absentee in the clerk’s office for the June 5 recall election, according to the Government Accountability Board.
As of noon today, at least 206,128 absentee ballots had been issued by Wisconsin’s local election officials who track them using the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS). Just over one-third of municipalities track absentee ballots in SVRS, including all the state’s large cities.
The G.A.B. also released detailed, county-by-county numbers today, which are attached to this news release. Individual municipal numbers are not available from the G.A.B.
To give these numbers some context, a total of 68,000 absentee ballots were tracked in SVRS for the May 8 recall primary, which had an unofficial, overall turnout of 29.5 percent. On May 23, there were approximately 90,000 ballots tracked; on May 25 there were 113,558 ballots tracked; on May 29 there were 130,391 ballots tracked; on May 31, there were 164,848 ballots tracked; on June 1, there were 182,228 ballots tracked.
These numbers are likely to continue changing throughout the week as clerks enter data into the system.The G.A.B. will continue to provide updated absentee ballot numbers daily next week as clerks enter them into the system.
As many as 75 percent of all absentee ballots are typically cast in the clerk’s office, with the remainder being delivered by mail.
In-person absentee voting in the clerk’s office ended Friday, June 1. The deadline for most absentee voters to request ballots to be sent to them has also passed. Sequestered jurors and people who are hospitalized can still request ballots until 5 p.m. on Election Day. Mailed absentee ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, and must be received by the clerk by 4 p.m. the Friday after the election.
Federal Observers Dispatched for Recall Voting in Milwaukee
MILWAUKEE — The U.S. Department of Justice plans to the recall elections in Wisconsin on Tuesday, and will dispatch a team of federal observers to the city of Milwaukee.
The observers will be ensuring that the city complies with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in the electoral process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group.
There are six recall elections taking place on June 5 for governor, lieutenant governor and six state senate races.
Wisconsin’s Department of Justice is also a team of assistant attorneys general and special agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation to 12 cities in an effort to prevent voter fraud.
“The June recall election is a significant event in our state’s history,” said state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R). “The people of Wisconsin need to have confidence that their rights are being protected and the laws are being followed.”
The Appleton Post Crescent notes that voter fraud is “practically non-existent” in Wisconsin. In 2008, for example, the state conducted an investigation into complaints of voter fraud. Just 20 people were charged out of almost 3 million votes cast in the election.
The Wisconsin state election board is predicting on Tuesday. Between 60 and 65 percent of voters are expected to cast a ballot, which would put turnout higher than in the 2010 elections but lower than 2008.
Scott Walker (The Other One) Sets Wisconsin Straight
There are many Scott Walkers in the world, and quite a lot of Tom Barretts as well, only two of whom are running for governor of Wisconsin.
In fact, there are at least three more of each in Milwaukee alone, according to online directories, and no doubt they take some ribbing from friends and likely get some unusual comments from strangers for their names’ sake alone.
But it’s unlikely even these homegrown soundalikes are as often mistaken for a certain candidate in the upcoming election as is a Louisiana man well known in his own right – Scott Walker, news anchor at WDSU TV in New Orleans.
“The other Scott Walker,” as he has taken to calling himself lately, has been hearing about his Wisconsin doppelganger for years, and more and more in the past year.
New poll shows race tightening:
A poll released late Sunday by Public Policy Polling shows that Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has narrowed the gap a bit in the gubernatorial recall race against Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Rally Messages from Left, Right Point to Voter Turnout
Two rallies, two distinct ways of looking at the state’s historic recalls and one overriding message: Get out and vote, and get as many people as possible to go, too.
“Call everyone you know,” Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch told the almost 4,000 people in Gorney Park Saturday for the Racine Tea Party rally. “Email your family and friends, talk to your neighbors, use social media and let’s win this thing for Wisconsin.”
Nikki Haley Joins Walker at Quad, says to “Reward His Courage”
Hundreds of Quad/Graphics Inc. workers flooded the factory floor Friday afternoon as Gov. Scott Walker and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley addressed employees, asking for their votes on Tuesday.
Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch kicked-off the “grassroots rally” at the factory, introducing Gov. Walker to an enormous round of applause. Just before taking the stage, the governor was handed a traditional dark blue Quad shirt that almost every employee at the factory wears.
“I’m here to ask for your vote on Tuesday,” Gov. Walker said.
Former President Bill Clinton visited Pere Marquette Park Friday to support Democrat Tom Barrett as Wisconsin’s tumultuous recall election nears its end.
Clinton made cooperation the theme of his speech and hammered Gov. Scott Walker for his “divide and conquer” tactics. (Read more on Patch)
Barrett Cooks the Books on Crime Stats
Released from the Scott Walker campaign May 23:
Madison, Wis. – Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett once said of improving crime statistics, “The statistics tell a lot, but if you look even deeper in these statistics, they tell you, I think, an even more striking story.” It turns out the Mayor Barrett was right. Because a new report today from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show us that over the last three years at least 500 violent crimes were misreported by Milwaukee as minor assaults. So many crimes were misreported, that Milwaukee’s violent crime rate actually increased, instead of the reported decrease.
“This is another example in the ever growing list of Tom Barrett’s failed leadership. It’s inexcusable that under his watch, the public was deceived as to the real levels of crime in Milwaukee,” said Walker Deputy Campaign Manager Dan Blum. “The more we learn about Tom Barrett, the more we know that we can’t trust him to do anything other than take Wisconsin backwards.”
The report also states that 800 more cases fit the pattern of misreporting, but public records were not available. A criminology professor called the report’s findings “just the tip of the iceberg” and said “misreporting is cheating the public.” He added “If they are playing fast and loose, they will do it with the cases they don’t send to the prosecutor. If it’s this bad at this level, how bad can it be on the cases that don’t reach eye level?”
Read the report here.
New Marquette Poll Puts Walker Up By Six Points Over Barrett
Gov. Scott Walker is up by six points against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, according to a new Marquette University Law School poll of likely voters.
The results of the poll were released Wednesday during a segment of the on-going “On the Issues” series with Mike Gousha and Professor Charles Franklin. Polling of 704 registered voters took place between May 9-12, and the poll results include responses from 600 likely voters in the pool with a 3.8 percent margin of error.
Only 3 percent of those surveyed said they are undecided.
Scott Walker for President 2016 - What Happens If Scott Walker Wins Is No Good at All - Esquire
Right now, if nothing else changes, it looks very much like Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, is going to keep his job. If that’s the case, and assuming he doesn’t go down in the ongoing John Doe investigation in Milwaukee, I predict that he will have an “exploratory committee” set up in Iowa within the month, and he will suddenly discover a deeply held desire to spend a lot of time in places like Nashua and Manchester. Make no mistake: If he hangs on, he will be the biggest star in the Republican party. Chris Christie yells at all the right people, but has he ever faced down the existential threat that schoolteachers and snowplow drivers brought to bear on Walker? Marco Rubio? Has he withstood the wrath of organized janitors and professors of the humanities? If Walker wins in June, it wouldn’t take very much effort at all for Fox News and for the vast universe of conservative sugar-daddies and their organization to decide that Walker should be the odds-on choice for 2016.
Dear Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: That heinous future actually could happen if you don’t get out of the Green Room and get the DNC off the stick here. I’m still not kidding. If the Democrats blow this one, and if it’s proven that the DNC could have helped in any way and didn’t, you should be fired before the sun goes down. In 1990, the DNC declined to help fully a congressional candidate named David Worley in Georgia. The Worley people were begging for money, for organizers, for a lifeline of any kind. Very little was forthcoming. Worley lost to Newt Gingrich by 978 votes. How would the subsequent 10 years have been different if Gingrich’s political career had ended ignominiously in 1990? That’s the kind of chance that you seem to be allowing to go a’glimmering in Wisconsin. Let Walker win, and Democrats not yet born will curse your name.
