Court throws a curveball into absentee voting,
letting the Trump administration move forward
with more restrictive rules. But Wisconsin election
officials say we're a long ways from November, and
there will be more lawsuits. This is in Wisconsin
politics.
I'm Zac Schultz, filling in for Shawn
Johnson here with my colleagues, Anya van
Wagtendonk and Rich Kremer in Eau Claire. Hello to
both of you. Hey. On Monday,
the U.S. Supreme Court's shadow docket struck again,
releasing an unsigned opinion that allows the
Trump administration to go forward with orders for the
Postal Service to create rules restricting who can
send an absentee ballot through the mail. Ana. This
started as an executive order last spring.
Wisconsin was one of the states that sued to stop it.
So where are we now? >> I mean, we're still in
the court. So this was the court did not rule on sort
of the merits of the executive order themselves.
They ruled on the timing of the lawsuit that Wisconsin
and other states filed, essentially saying that
because the Postal Service rule has not yet been put
in place, they can't argue that they have been harmed.
Meanwhile, the Postal Service did author and
publish the rule that would go into effect as soon as
the order is cleared. And so now things go back to a
lower court than they will go back to the Supreme
Court, which will of weigh in on whether the
executive branch, the president, is allowed to
make such a kind of sweeping change to state
elections, which are, according to the
Constitution, sort of supposed to be decided by
the states. >> So nothing happening at
this exact moment. But everyone should be a little
bit worried and aware of what's.
we're ten weeks out from the midterm elections. And
so one of the things that we're hearing from election
administrators is sort of, well, what are we supposed
to be doing in the meantime? They are in the process of
printing out these ballots, ballots that go to overseas,
and military voters need to be sent out 45 days in
advance of the election. So that's like, I think
September 19th. So all this stuff needs to be happening,
this nitty gritty administrative stuff. And
meanwhile, they're trying to figure out just like how
the rules function. >> Rich Republicans have an
interesting relationship with absentee balloting
going back years where they've talked about
restricting it, but they also love to use it,
including Republican nominee Tom Tiffany.
>> And President Donald Trump. I believe it was
reported, used it this year as well. So it's an
interesting paradox. So going back to 2020,
President Donald Trump has made these these false
claims about widespread voter fraud that that
resulted in a stolen election. But part of that,
of course, was his railing against mail in absentee
voting. And he said it's just a prime opportunity
for fraud to happen. So many of his supporters have
bought into that. And here in Wisconsin, we've got
this paradox where you've got the state party chair,
Bryan Schimming, the GOP party chair, who he said,
well, I was one of the first state party chairs in
the country to advocate for absentee voting and early
voting as a way to kind of match Democrats who have
been really successful with that. In terms of getting
out the vote early ahead of Election Day, less work on
Election Day. At the same time, you've got people
within the party that want to impeach the state's
election top election official Megan Wolf,
they've they've went after Republican speaker,
outgoing Republican Speaker of the Assembly, Robin Vos,
for not trying to decertify the election, etc. So it's
really kind of a paradox between those two worlds in
the Wisconsin GOP. >> So anyway, what are
clerks doing right now? I guess, in Wisconsin history,
we've had a lot of lawsuits that happen right before an
election, but usually those involve state law. This
would be seemingly a much larger change than one that
they really wouldn't have any impact on.
>> Yeah. Well, Wisconsin also is unique because it
has sort of the most Dietsche federated election
administration system in the country. So a lot of
other places, you know, it's county clerks who run
administration who administer elections. Here
it is local clerks. And so they are all,
again, doing this kind of nitty gritty work of
printing out the ballots and checking their lists.
And there's all of this work that goes on kind of
behind the scenes to prepare for this. Every
clerk I've spoken to says that like as soon as one
election ends, the next one begins for them in terms of
their work. And so the primary just ended. They're
all getting ready for the general. And so as these
rules kind of shift and as they're waiting again for
the back and forth from the courts, it really kind of
raises the question of what are like, how do they
follow the rules if they don't yet know what the
rules are? And especially for something like this,
with the Postal Service being in charge of
potentially determining who is allowed to receive a
mailing ballot and who is not, they could
accidentally violate that rule if they're not very,
very careful. And so they're kind of waiting to
see. So we are just kind of in this wait and see moment
when again, they actually need to be kind of hurrying
up just to get stuff like formatted for the printer.
Again, this very administrative details that
how we all vote. >> And there have been
concerns about how the Postal Service will handle
absentee ballots, especially under the Trump
administration, are both two separate Trump
administrations. There have conspiracies about whether
the Postal Service will lose the ballots, whether
they'll be processing them on time, or are there
enough postal workers to handle all of these routes.
And so I know that the parties in the past have
told their voters, hey, if you're worried, make sure
you deliver it in person. Rich, have we seen any of
these groups, whether the Democrats or Republicans
trying to make sure that their voters are aware,
even if these don't happen, like, hey, maybe it's
safest to hand deliver these, or maybe you do
absentee in person if you can.
>> Yeah. And also some of the clerks. So the
Wisconsin Elections clerks this year, I believe.
And anyway, the results came out this year. And a
lot of them, the majority of them did mention there
has been longer than expected delays with regard
to absentee voting. This was in the April Supreme
Court election, but so some of them in the summary of
the survey responses from those clerks have said that
people are just saying, well, I. I won't even try
to absentee vote. I'll go a different route. And so
some of the clerks were also advising that they
consider in-person absentee voting or other forms,
which is really something. And, you know, I got a
chance to ask Republican congressman and candidate
for governor, Tom Tiffany, about this specific
executive order from the president and what he
thought about it. He deflected and kind of went
along the lines of saying, most clerks do a great job.
But he said some, without naming them, have gone
beyond what the color of the law dictates. So
without naming them, we can assume that it might be
Dane County and Milwaukee County that he has an issue
with, because we've heard that from other Republicans.
So it's just a really interesting situation. And
and we are we're right on the cusp of this election.
So this uncertainty definitely has got a lot of
eyebrows raised. >> So this has only
happened in the last, obviously, day or so. How
much can this change the conversation in the
gubernatorial election? Because for the past few
weeks since the candidates have been set, it's been
about data centers, and that's been the driving
force of Tiffany attacking David Crowley and Crowley
trying to defend and put it back in his candidacy. But
could this change the topic and bring up those
connections Tom Tiffany has to Donald Trump, or the
fact that these almost all come out of election
conspiracies from 2020? Can this be an opening to
change the narrative of what people are talking
about? >> To Rich's point? You
know, I think one of the consequences of something
like this isn't just that it's confusing for election
officials, but that it can kind of sow confusion and
doubt among voters. And so for voters who are kind of
already concerned about American democracy, who do
tend to skew democratic, this is kind of part of
that pattern for voters who maybe have questions about
the 2020 election, or are Trump supporters much like
Tom Tiffany, right, who was somebody who voted to
decertify 2020 election results in certain other
states? This is just kind of an example of of the
chaos that they say is just kind of baked into the
system. And so it kind of gives them an opportunity
if things don't necessarily go their way in November to
point to the shifting rules, the back and forth, the
courts, the judges as a reason for that. And so at
the very least, you know, even if it does kind of
resolve in a way that allows administrators to,
to do their job sort of without a hitch, it still
creates this sense of chaos in the kind of basis of our
democracy which is voting. >> So, yeah. So rich, do
you think Republicans want to change the conversation
here, or is this strictly the Democrats would love to
be able to pin this back, even if it causes confusion
and say, this is what you get with Tom, Tiffany and
Donald Trump? >> Yeah. It seems like
Democrats are much more eager to talk about this
sort of thing than Republicans. When Tom
Tiffany has been asked about his 2020 votes and
his signing on to a Texas lawsuit that year that
would have tossed out Wisconsin's votes in the
presidential election, he just defers like he'll
quickly say, Joe Biden is president, and then he
moves on. So based on that, and also based on some
Republican commentary I've seen from people in
Wisconsin, they definitely don't want Tom Tiffany
talking about this. They don't necessarily want him
talking about issues that President Trump is pushing
that are unpopular. But you can rest assured that
Democrats are very excited to talk about this
development from the Supreme Court, the
president's attempts, his plans, etc. because we got
a press release first thing this morning about it.
>> So another topic that could come up in the
governor's race that we're paying attention to.
Governor Evers, commutation Advisory Board, met for the
first time last week to hear a dozen from a dozen
inmates who have applied to have their sentences
reduced. Ana what do we know about this board? And
then how will that filter out into Tom Tiffany versus
David Crowley? Why would it have anything to do with
them? time that this board has
met since 1995. That was under Republican Governor
Tommy Thompson. And so this has been sort of a priority
of Governor Evers is to to make some changes to
criminal justice in Wisconsin. He has not
delivered on many of those. But this was kind of one of
his final acts in office, is to potentially reduce
the sentence of grant commutations to some
incarcerated people. And so this is a big deal, in part
because crime is just always an issue in any
election. I mean, we've seen it even with Supreme
Court races where they don't really have any, you
know, role in fighting crime. But crime is just
something that motivates voters. And so this issue
of potentially, you know, lessening the sentence of
people, some of whom were convicted for nonviolent
crimes, some of whom were convicted for violent
crimes, according to a series of kind of criteria,
including they've served a majority of their sentence,
they've proven that they've sort of rehabilitated in
certain ways. But all of that can be the type of
thing that Republicans in particular, who like to say
Democrats are kind of easy on crime, can really seize
upon. And, you know, I'm from Massachusetts. And so
I grew up learning about sort of the Willie Horton
case, which was a person who was released from
prison, went on to commit another very violent crime.
a little bit before my time. But I grew up learning
about this. And that is the kind of thing that can
really sink elections. And so I think as this is going
forward, you know, it is popular among voters of
many different stripes to do some sort of criminal
justice reform. But when you kind of look at what
that actually looks like, it can be a bit of a
tightrope walk for politicians.
bring up Willie Horton because that came out in a
Democratic primary in 1988. It was al Gore versus
Dukakis, and then it ended up playing a major role in
the presidential campaign in 88, where it was Lee
Atwater, who Atwater, who was one of the first
negative ad gurus out there, ran it against Dukakis. And
it was considered one of the things that showed
weakness in him and why he went from high approval
ratings to losing that election in 1988. And, Rich,
obviously, this is have a history of looking
at as crime in Milwaukee, and especially people of
color. We've already started to see some of
those connections. They're trying to draw between
David Crowley and any bad thing that happens in
Milwaukee County. It's a little bit of like throwing
spaghetti at the wall. See what sticks right now. But
this is definitely something they will use
against him, even if it's the weakest of links.
>> Yeah. That's right. This is something that has
proven to be able to stick in the past. I mean, I
think back to 2022, the US Senate race between
Republican incumbent and now Senator Ron Johnson and
former lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes. That race,
the Republicans supporting Johnson and Johnson himself
just blanketed the Wisconsin airwaves with ads
about how Barnes was, you know, about defunding the
police or he was anti ICE and he was weak on crime. I
mean, these sort of things. Again, a US senator doesn't
have a ton to do in the, you know, directly with
crime fighting. But these are the kind of topics that
that stir up people's emotions. Also, back in
2022, the Marquette University Law School did a
survey that I found really interesting. It showed that,
you know, 77% of respondents said they feel
safe in their daily activities, but 85%
reported being either somewhat concerned or very
concerned about increasing crime. So that kind of
shows how the emotions can get in the way of numbers
on paper. >> And yeah, it's
interesting. The crime statistics came out for
Wisconsin showing a decrease, as we've seen
nationally, including in Milwaukee, but there's
still going to be allegations. We saw it with
videos of incidents at the state fair. And all of a
sudden the connection we saw was Republicans saying,
This is David Crowley Wisconsin. And I didn't
know that the Milwaukee County exec was in charge
of the state fair and like, making sure everyone stayed
in line there. But this will keep coming up, right?
>> Yeah. I mean, as Rich said, statistics and
people's feelings kind of have almost nothing to do
with one another. In fact, there's been research that
shows that as crime rates have steadily gone down,
minus the Covid spike, you know, from the 90s,
coverage of crime has gone up in local media. And so
it gives the impression to a lot of people. You know,
I talk to people from outside of Milwaukee who
are convinced that it's kind of on fire just 100%
of the time. And so if you feel that way, it kind of
doesn't matter what the statistics say. And you can
really leverage that concern, especially for
somebody like David Crowley, who is so Milwaukee, right,
that he is of Milwaukee, he is the county executive.
The Tom Tiffany campaign will try to tie him to
every single problem that Milwaukee has, including
crime rates that are higher than elsewhere in the state,
because that is just kind of the nature of urban
centers. want to talk about today
and talking about changing the topic in the governor's
race, if we ever get away from data centers being
this primary driver, there is the of these tariffs
coming in. And we have a couple different aspects of.
One is Trump is escalating a new trade war with Canada.
And we're also seeing questions about whether he
would allow imported beef coming in from South
America to come into the market and reducing tariffs
there. And rich tariffs have an interesting another
interesting aspect of Republicans of when Trump
imposes them, that they don't change the cost
according to Republicans. But when he lowers them,
it's supposed to lower the cost of beef coming in. But
what's been the reaction to some of these different
tariff war battles going on? >> So again, this is
something that I would imagine Republicans aren't
excited to talk about, but Tom Tiffany has in the past,
he's he's talked about how the president is doing
these these things, these tariffs in order to reshore
manufacturing in Wisconsin, he said. The media doesn't
talk about the success stories. He mentioned
something about a Harley-Davidson plant,
something happening with that in Tomahawk. So they
don't want to talk about the downsides of that. I
did see something I honestly wasn't able to go
through the whole article, but that Tom Tiffany might
have been creating some distance between the
president on this latest batch with regard to Canada.
But again, I'm not as not super well versed on that.
It's definitely a topic, though, with affordability
being top concern among voters in general, and
Democrats are going to try to make hay with it.
>> And Anya, in our last minute here talking about
these tariff issues, I mean, Democrats were quick to
pounce on this, Governor Evers saying we have a $7
billion in trade with Canada. Our closest
neighbor. Like these have real world implications,
not just political implications.
>> Right. But again, it's sort of it's the work of
politicians to kind of draw those connections and make
people understand, you know, when you go to the grocery
store, it doesn't say like, this came from X, Y, Z. You
just sort of pick up your eggs and your milk and you
go on your way. And then likewise, especially kind
of further out on the supply chain, we get a ton
of wood from Canada, for example. I don't see like a
sticker on this table kind of explaining how this
table came to be. And so it's easy to feel kind of
distanced as just a normal person going through the
world from some of these policies. So it's the job
of Democrats if they want to make hay with this, as
Rich said, to make that hay, which is also involves a
little bit of complicated explaining of sort of
geopolitical maneuvering, which is a little tricky in
like a 32nd ad, as we've talked about.
have the money to run those 32nd ads over and over to
explain perhaps nuanced geopolitical maneuvers in
an election. Well, that is all the time we have for
today. Our colleague Shawn Johnson will be back next
week. This has been inside Wisconsin politics. Be sure
to follow us on PBS wisconsin.org. WPR.org,
YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.