Editor’s note: This article was written before the April 7 Wisconsin primary.
MILWAUKEE, WI — No one should ever have to choose between protecting their health and exercising their right to vote, but that is the scenario Wisconsin voters face as the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected [Democrat] Governor Tony Evers decision to move the primary election from April 7 to mid-June.
The Republican legislators, led by [Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos and [State Senate Majority Leader Scott] Fitzgerald (the same crooks who brought us ACT 10 in 2010, which stripped collective bargaining rights from public workers) pushed to have the primary on April 7 despite the state and country being under Stay-at-Home orders during the Covid-19 pandemic. These crooks are trying to steal another Wisconsin Supreme Court seat and they know that having the primary during a pandemic will produce a low turnout, especially in Milwaukee, where only 5 polling stations out of 180 will be open.
[On April 7] Wisconsin voters [stood] in a two-hour line outside Riverside High School in Milwaukee (shortly after a hail storm) at one of the 5 poll sites that were open in the city. … Respect to the voters and polls workers who are risking their lives during the Corona Virus epidemic. This election should have been postponed until June had the corrupt Republicans and WI Supreme Court not defied the Governor’s orders. This is all about reducing voter turn-out to steal yet another election.
[What’s at stake? The most closely watched statewide race is for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Republican Daniel Kelly (endorsed by Trump) and Democrat Jill Karofsky are running (editor’s note: Karofsky won.) The winner gets a 10-year term in the court, which will likely review a major voter suppression case.]
This has national implications. Republicans have been trying to remove over 200,000 Wisconsin voters from the registration roll for the upcoming November Presidential election and a Republican-leaning Supreme Court could possibly achieve those ends. (Remember that Wisconsin is considered a key swing state that could decide the 2020 Presidential election.) Republicans have long since had to steal elections to win them, but now they are literally endangering public safety. Voters and poll workers are now risking their health (and possibly their lives) to vote, while potentially spreading the virus to others. April 7, 2020 will go down as the most corrupt, unsafe, undemocratic election in Wisconsin’s history.
Nicolas Lampert is a Milwaukee-based interdisciplinary artist, educator and author whose work focuses on themes of social justice and ecology. He is a member of the Just Seeds Artists Cooperative and author of A People’s Art History of the United States (2013, The New Press).
