Posts tagged "wisconsin recalls"
Voter turnout is heavy across Wisconsin, including the conservative Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield. A line of voters snaked outside Dixon Elementary School before the doors opened at 7 a.m.
Jeff Freisleben, one of the first voters to cast his ballot, said he voted for Gov. Scott Walker.
“I like that he went into office and did what he said he would do,” Freisleben said. “Tom Barrett doesn’t have a plan and can’t answer the questions when asked.”
Milwaukee Calls in Extra Poll Workers for Recall Election
Heavy turnout in Milwaukee led the city Election Commission to call out the reserves Tuesday.
The backup workers were needed to handle long lines, partly because a significant number of new voters were registering at the polls, Edman said.
“We knew things would be busy, but we didn’t know how busy,” Edman said.
Suburban Milwaukee Voters Flock to the Polls in Historic Recall Election
Beloit billionaire (and Walker donor) paid no income taxes
From the story by the Journal Sentinel:
Diane Hendricks, the richest woman in Wisconsin, had a state income tax bill of zero for 2010, state records show.
The goose egg in 2010 was the first zero obligation posted by the Beloit billionaire since at least 2002, according to records from the state Department of Revenue and ABC Supply Inc., the nation’s largest wholesale distributor of roofing, windows and siding and owned by Hendricks. She had a seven-figure Wisconsin tax bill in four of the previous five years, the records show.
Hendricks was thrust into the spotlight last month when a videotape showing her talking with Gov. Scott Walker about strategies to fight unions was released. In the tape, which is part of a documentary under production, Walker talked about using a “divide and conquer” strategy toward unions through his budget-adjustment bill, which curtailed most collective bar gaining for most public employee unions and created a political uproar that will culminate with Tuesday’s recall election.
Madison, Wis. – The Friends of Scott Walker campaign released a new ad today titled “Truthful,” which raises questions on the rampant misreporting of violent crime in Milwaukee during Mayor Tom Barrett’s tenure.
“Mayor Barrett owes the people of Wisconsin an explanation as to why hundreds of violent crimes were misreported to FBI,” said Walker campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews. “Because Tom Barrett has failed to come clean about how such egregious misreporting could have happened, voters still don’t know if the mayor was involved in an intentional cover-up for the purpose of political gain. This is the kind of failed leadership that Wisconsin cannot afford.”
An independent's view of the Wisconsin recalls
This independent voter says Gov. Scott Walker’s move to get public employees contributing to their pensions was a good one, but it was accomplished by accident, because Walker’s move against unions is part of a broader strategy to attack the state’s Democratic party — and the ability for Dems to win here in the future.
Follow the Money: Who Gave How Much to Whom
Patch has a new database that allows residents to search for a particular name to see if they donated - and how much - to either Gov. Scott Walker or Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
Check out Patch’s daily Recall Roundup. We’re delivering summaries of recall events and stories every day until the June 5 election.
Voter Turnout Estimated at 60 to 65 percent for June 5 Recall Election
The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board is predicting that between 60 and 65 percent of the voting age population – or approximately 2.6 to 2.8 million people – will cast regular and absentee ballots for the Tuesday, June 5 Recall Election.
“Wisconsin has never had a statewide recall election, which makes predicting turnout difficult,” said Kevin Kennedy, director and general counsel of the G.A.B. “We typically look at history for guidance in predicting turnout. We expect turnout for this election to be much higher than the 49.7 percent turnout in the 2010 General Election for Governor, but not as high as the 69.2 percent turnout in the 2008 General Election for President of the United States.”
Historically, the highest voter turnout in a November gubernatorial election in the last 50 years was 52.4percent in 1962. The highest turnout in the past decade was 50.9 percent in 2006. Wisconsin’s 2011 voting age population is 4,352,762 people. Statistics on past voter turnout and current voter registration are available at http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/statistics.
The number of Wisconsin residents who have already requested absentee ballots or voted absentee in the clerk’s office for the recall election continues to climb, said Elections Division Administrator Nat Robinson.
As of noon today, at least 130,391 absentee ballots had been issued by Wisconsin’s local election officials who track them using the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS), compared to 113,558 by midday Friday, May 25, Robinson said. Clerk’s offices in some larger cities were open for in-person absentee voting over the Memorial Day weekend.
To give that number some context, a total of 68,000 absentee ballots were tracked in SVRS for the May 8 recall primary. Just over one-third of municipalities track absentee ballots in SVRS, including all the state’s large cities.
There were a total of 230,744 absentee ballots cast in the November 2010 General Election for Governor, and a total of 633,610 cast in the November 2008 General Election for President. These numbers include all ballots, not just those tracked in SVRS, and included an extra week of absentee voting.
As many as 75 percent of all absentee ballots are typically cast in the clerk’s office, with the remainder being delivered by mail. The percentage of voters voting via absentee ballot jumped from about 6 percent in 2000, to about 12 percent in 2004, to more than 21 percent in 2008, then dropped to 10 percent in 2010.
In-person absentee voting in the clerk’s office runs through 5 p.m. or the close of business on Friday, June 1, whichever is later. Some clerks are offering extended hours to handle demand. Voters can find their local clerk’s office address and phone number on Voter Public Access: vpa.wi.gov.
The deadline for clerks to receive a request for an absentee ballot by mail is 5 p.m. Thursday, May 31. Voters who request an absentee ballot using a flier they received in the mail should double check the clerk’s mailing address in the event of an error, Kennedy said.
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. All properly-cast absentee ballots will counted, regardless of how close the election is.
