Ballot shortages reported in Milwaukee during 'historic turnout in the spring election'
Seven polling sites were totally out of ballots and election officials were working to replenish the supply. They are also checking with other sites that are low on ballots.
Anyone in line by 8 p.m. will be able to vote, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez said Tuesday evening.
Officials said no voters would be turned away due to the shortages, and voters can call 414-286-VOTE with any concerns or questions.
Election officials have increased field staff and sent ExpressVote machines that are used at early voting to those locations, along with additional ballots, she said. The ExpressVote machines allow voters to make their selections on a screen and print a ballot that can then be fed into the machine that tallies the votes.
"The fact that this is historic turnout in the spring election, which has never occurred here in the city, feels great," she said. "We apologize for the delays that are happening. We ask you to remain patient. Please stay in line."
Any voters who are told they cannot vote should alert election officials immediately, she said, adding that "absolutely should not happen."
Gutiérrez said the Election Commission put in two additional orders of ballots about a week ago after seeing how busy early voting was.
But the turnout on Tuesday meant the sites went through those additional ballots, forcing the Election Commission to print additional ballots. The printing can be a slow process, she said.
On the ballot is the nationally watched state Supreme Court race in addition to the race for state superintendent.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ballot shortages reported at some City of Milwaukee polling sites
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
7 minutes ago
- CNN
How the Supreme Court could wind up scrapping high-profile precedents in coming months
The Supreme Court's landmark opinion on same-sex marriage isn't the only high-profile precedent the justices will have an opportunity to tinker with – or entirely scrap – when the court reconvenes this fall. From a 1935 opinion that has complicated President Donald Trump's effort to consolidate power to a 2000 decision that deals with prayer at high school football games, the court will soon juggle a series of appeals seeking to overturn prior decisions that critics say are 'outdated,' 'poorly reasoned' or 'egregiously wrong.' While many of those decisions are not as prominent as the court's 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that gave same-sex couples access to marriage nationwide, some may be more likely to find a receptive audience. Generally, both conservative and liberal justices are reticent to engage in do-overs because it undermines stability in the law. And independent data suggests the high court under Chief Justice John Roberts has been less willing to upend past rulings on average than earlier courts. But the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority hasn't shied from overturning precedent in recent years – notably on abortion but also affirmative action and government regulations. The court's approval in polling has never fully recovered from its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to abortion. Here are some past rulings the court could reconsider in the coming months. Even before Trump was reelected, the Supreme Court's conservatives had put a target on a Roosevelt-era precedent that protects the leaders of independent agencies from being fired by the president for political reasons. The first few months of Trump's second term have only expedited its demise. The 1935 decision, Humphrey's Executor v. US, stands for the idea that Congress may shield the heads of independent federal agencies, like the National Labor Relations Board or the Consumer Product Safety Commission, from being fired by the president without cause. But in recent years, the court has embraced the view that Congress overstepped its authority with those for-cause requirements on the executive branch. Court watchers largely agree 'that Humphrey's Executor is next on the Supreme Court's chopping block, meaning the next case they are slated to reverse,' said Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who worked in the Biden administration. In a series of recent emergency orders, the court has allowed Trump – ever eager to remove dissenting voices from power – to fire leaders of independent agencies who were appointed by former President Joe Biden. The court's liberal wing has complained that, following those decisions, the Humphrey's decision is already effectively dead. 'For 90 years, Humphrey's Executor v. United States has stood as a precedent of this court,' Justice Elena Kagan wrote last month. 'Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law.' Through the end of the Supreme Court term that ended in June, the Roberts court overruled precedent an average of 1.5 times each term, according to Lee Epstein, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who oversees the Supreme Court Database. That compares with 2.9 times on average prior to Roberts, dating to 1953. An important outstanding question is which case challenging Humphrey's will make it to the Supreme Court – and when. The high court has already agreed to hear an appeal – possibly this year – that could overturn a 2001 precedent limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with federal candidates. Democrats warn the appeal, if successful, could 'blow open the cap on the amount of money that donors can funnel to candidates.' In a lawsuit initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance and other Republicans, the challengers describe the 2001 decision upholding the caps – FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee – as an 'aberration' that was 'plainly wrong the day it was decided.' If a majority of the court thinks the precedent controls the case, they wrote in their appeal, 'it should overrule that outdated decision.' Republicans say the caps are hopelessly inconsistent with the Supreme Court's modern campaign finance doctrine and that they have 'harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere,' such as super PACs, which can raise unlimited funds but do not coordinate with candidates. In recent years, the Supreme Court has tended to shoot down campaign finance rules as violating the First Amendment. A recent Supreme Court appeal from Kim Davis, a former county clerk from Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has raised concerns from some about the court overturning its decade-old Obergefell decision. Davis is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict – plus $260,000 for attorneys' fees – awarded over her move to defy the Supreme Court's decision and decline to issue the licenses. Davis has framed her appeal in religious terms, a strategy that often wins on the conservative court. She described Obergefell as a 'mistake' that 'must be corrected.' 'If ever there was a case of exceptional importance, the first individual in the Republic's history who was jailed for following her religious convictions regarding the historic definition of marriage, this should be it,' Davis told the justices in her appeal. Even if there are five justices willing to overturn the decision – and there are plenty of signs there are not – many court watchers believe Davis' appeal is unlikely to be the vehicle for that review. Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, wrote recently that there are 'multiple flaws' with Davis' case. People in the private sector – say, a wedding cake baker or a website developer – likely have a First Amendment right to exercise their objections to same-sex marriage. But, Somin wrote, public employees are a very different matter. 'They are not exercising their own rights,' he wrote, 'but the powers of the state.' Days after returning to the bench in October to begin a new term, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in one of the most significant appeals on its docket. The case centers on Louisiana's fraught congressional districts map and whether the state violated the 14th Amendment when it drew a second majority-Black district. If the court sides with a group of self-described 'non-Black voters,' it could gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Three years ago, a federal court ruled that Louisiana likely violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing only one majority Black district out of six. When state lawmakers tried to fix that problem by drawing a second majority-minority district, a group of White voters sued. Another court then ruled that the new district was drawn based predominantly on race and thus violated the Constitution. The court heard oral arguments in the case in March. But rather than issuing a decision, it then took the unusual step in June of holding the case for more arguments. Earlier this month, the court ordered more briefing on the question of whether the creation of a majority-minority district to remedy a possible Voting Rights Act violation is constitutional. The case has nationwide implications; if the court rules that lawmakers can't fix violations of the Voting Rights Act by drawing new majority-minority districts, it could make it virtually impossible to enforce the landmark 1965 law when it comes to redistricting. That outcome could effectively overturn a line of Supreme Court precedents dating to its 1986 decision in Thornburg v. Gingles, in which the court ruled that North Carolina had violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters. Just two years ago, the court ordered officials in Alabama to redraw the state's congressional map, upholding a lower court decision that found the state had violated the statute. 'Some opponents of the Voting Rights Act may urge the court to go further and overturn long-standing precedents, but there's absolutely no reason to go there,' said Michael Li, an expert on redistricting and voting rights and a senior counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. The case will not affect the battle raging over redistricting and the effort by Texas Republicans to redraw congressional boundaries to benefit their party. That's because the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 2019 decision that federal courts cannot review partisan gerrymanders. What's at stake in the Louisiana case, instead, is how far lawmakers may go in considering race when they redraw congressional and state legislative boundaries every decade. Air Force Staff Sgt. Cameron Beck was killed in 2021 on Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri when a civilian employee driving a government-issued van turned in front of his motorcycle. When his wife tried to sue the federal government for damages, she was blocked by a 1950 Supreme Court decision that severely limits damages litigation from service members and their families. The pending appeal from Beck's family, which the court will review behind closed doors next month, will give the justices another opportunity to reconsider that widely criticized precedent. The so-called Feres Doctrine generally prohibits service members from suing the government for injuries that arose 'incident to service.' The idea is that members of the military can't sue the government for injuries that occur during wartime or training. But critics say the upshot is that service members have been barred from filing routine tort claims – including for traffic accidents involving government vehicles – that anyone else could file. 'This court should overrule Feres,' Justice Clarence Thomas, a stalwart conservative, wrote earlier this year in a similar case the court declined to hear. 'It has been almost universally condemned by judges and scholars.' Thomas is correct that criticism of the opinion has bridged ideologies. The Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal group, authored a brief in the Beck case arguing that the 'sweeping bar to recovery for servicemembers' adopted by the Feres decision 'is at odds' with what Congress intended. But the federal government, regardless of which party controls the White House, has long rejected those arguments. The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject Beck's case, noting that Feres has 'been the law for more than 70 years, and has been repeatedly reaffirmed by this court.' Prominent religious groups are taking aim at a 25-year-old Supreme Court precedent that barred prayer from being broadcast over the public address system before varsity football games at a Texas high school. In that 6-3 decision, the court ruled that a policy permitting the student-led prayer violated the Establishment Clause, a part of the First Amendment that blocks the government from establishing a state religion. But the court's makeup and views on religion have shifted substantially since then, with a series of significant rulings that thinned the wall that once separated church from state. When the justices meet in late September to decide whether to grant new appeals, they will weigh a request to overturn that earlier decision, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. The new case involves a Christian school in Florida that was forbidden by the state athletic association from broadcasting the prayer ahead of a championship game with another religious school. The Supreme Court should overrule Santa Fe 'as out of step with its more recent government-speech precedent,' the school's attorneys told the high court in its appeal. 'Santa Fe,' they said, 'was dubious from the outset.' It is an argument that may find purchase with the court's conservatives, who have increasingly framed state policies that exclude religious actors as discriminatory. In 2022, the high court reinstated a football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who lost his job at a public high school after praying at the 50-yard line after games. Those prayers, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court at the time, amounted to 'a brief, quiet, personal religious observance.' Kennedy submitted a brief in the new case urging the Supreme Court to take up the appeal – and to now let pregame prayers reverberate through the stadium. The school, Kennedy's lawyers wrote, 'has a longstanding tradition of, and deeply held belief in, opening games with a prayer over the stadium loudspeaker.'
New York Post
36 minutes ago
- New York Post
Who's REALLY ‘destroying democracy' — after failing to win voters legitimately?
'Destroying democracy' — the latest theme of the left — can be defined in many ways. How about attempting to destroy constitutional, ancient and hallowed institutions simply to suit short-term political gains? So, who in 2020, and now once again, has boasted about packing the 156-year-old, nine-justice Supreme Court? Who talks frequently about destroying the 187-year-old Senate filibuster — though only when they hold a Senate majority? Who wants to bring in an insolvent left-wing Puerto Rico and redefine the 235-year-old District of Columbia — by altering the Constitution — as two new states solely to obtain four additional liberal senators? Who is trying to destroy the constitutionally mandated 235-year Electoral College by circumventing it with the surrogate 'The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact?' Does destroying democracy also entail weaponizing federal bureaucracies, turning them into rogue partisan arms of a president? So who ordered the CIA to concoct bogus charges of 'collusion' to sabotage Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, the 2016-2017 transition, and the first 22 months of Trump's first term? Who prompted a cabal of '51 former intelligence officials' to lie to the American people on the eve of the last debate of the 2020 election that the FBI-authenticated Hunter Biden laptop was instead the work of a 'Russian intelligence operation?' Who ordered the FBI to connive and partner with social-media conglomerates to censor accurate news deemed unhelpful to the 2020 Biden campaign? Who pulled off the greatest presidential coup in history by using surrogates in the shadows to run the cognitively debilitated Biden presidency, then by fiat canceled his reelection effort and finally anointed as his replacement the new nominee Kamala Harris, who had never won a single primary delegate? Who ordered FBI SWAT teams to invade the home of a former president because of a classification dispute over 102 files out of some 13,000 stored there? Who tried to remove an ex-president and leader of his party from at least 25 state ballots to deprive millions of Americans of the opportunity to vote for or against him? Who coordinated four local, state and federal prosecutors to destroy a former and future president by charging him with fantasy crimes that were never before, and will never again be, lodged against anyone else? Who appointed a federal prosecutor to go after the ex-president, who arranged for a high-ranking Justice Department official to step down to join a New York prosecutor's efforts to destroy an ex-president, and who met in the White House with a Georgia county prosecutor seeking to destroy an ex-president — all on the same day — a mere 72 hours after Trump announced his 2024 reelection bid? Who but the current Democrats ever impeached a president twice? Has any party ever tried an ex-president in the Senate when he was out of office and a mere private citizen? When have there ever been two near-miss assassination attempts on a major party presidential candidate during a single presidential campaign? Who destroyed the southern border and broke federal law to allow in, without criminal or health background audits, some 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens? Who created 600 'sanctuary jurisdictions' for the sole purpose of nullifying federal immigration law, in the eerie spirit of the renegade old Confederacy? Who allowed tens of thousands of rioters, arsonists and violent protesters over four months in 2020 to destroy over $2 billion in property, kill some 35 people, injure 1,500 police officers and torch a federal courthouse, a police precinct and a historic church — all with de facto legal impunity? How do the purported destroyers of democracy find themselves winning 60% to 70% approval on most of the key issues of our times, while the supposed saviors of democracy are on the losing side of popular opinion? How does a president 'destroy democracy' by his party winning the White House by both the popular and Electoral College vote, winning majorities in both the Senate and House by popular votes and enjoying a 6-3 edge in the Supreme Court through judges appointed by popularly elected presidents? So what is behind these absurd charges? Three catalysts: One, the new anguished elitist Democratic Party alienated the middle classes through its Jacobin agenda and therefore lost the Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, and now has no federal political power. Two, the Democratic Party is polling at record lows and yet remains hellbent on alienating the traditional sources of its power — minorities, youth and Independents. Three, Democrats cannot find any issues that the people support, nor any leaders to convince the people to embrace them. So it is no surprise that the panicked Democrats bark at the shadows — given that they know their revolutionary, neo-socialist agenda is destroying them. And yet, like all addicts, they choose destruction over abandoning their self-destructive fixations. Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.
CNBC
4 hours ago
- CNBC
Not in the cards: Why some suspect stable trade may not follow Trump's tariff deals
The White House has signed a number of notable trade deals in the months since President Donald Trump slapped sharply higher tariffs on imports in early April. But some on Wall Street are cautioning that turmoil surrounding relations between the U.S. and its major trading partners is far from over. "Our views have been at odds with the investor consensus all year – and they still are," Andy Laperriere, head of U.S. policy at Piper Sandler, wrote in a report this summer. "The emerging narrative is that even though tariffs are high, we now have deals that will provide stability in trade policy. Therefore, economic actors can adjust to the new reality and move on," he said. In his firm's opinion, however, "trade stability is not in the cards." Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs went into effect on Aug. 7. The president had announced the sweeping levies back on April 2, and their initial size sent stocks reeling before a series of walk-backs from the White House eased investors' concerns. Stocks have since recovered these losses and gone on to score record highs. Lately, investors have been betting that Trump won't implement the most draconian of his trade plans, in what has come to be known as the TACO trade, short for "Trump Always Chickens Out." But the duties that Trump announced in early April have in large part taken hold. An exception is Vietnam, as shown by Piper Sandler data. Though still high, the rate on imports from Vietnam is less than half the level Trump threatened on April 2, Laperriere said. "One of the things that I think is interesting, that I think is underappreciated is that 'liberation day' mostly arrived," Laperriere said during a webinar earlier this month. "When you look at our major trading partners, most of what was put on the board on April 2 is on the board now." Catalysts for instability Trump's tariffs have faced significant legal challenges, with a federal appeals court judge seeming skeptical in late July of the president's claim that he has the authority to impose new tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), a law that grants the president authority to regulate international commerce in response to a national emergency. Trump later warned U.S. courts against blocking his tariff policy. With the ongoing litigation and unsettled backdrop, uncertainty around the future of tariffs and trade persists. "If the courts find he is overstepping his authority to impose tariffs, which is highly likely, then the deals are null and void," Laperriere wrote in his report. "The Supreme Court is likely to rule against Trump's use of IEEPA within the next 10 months." One reason countries continue to negotiate is the assumption that Trump could pivot to use another authority if his IEEPA claim is struck down, said Ed Mills, managing director and Washington policy analyst at Raymond James. For example, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 — the original Smoot-Hawley protectionist legislation — allows a president to implement tariffs of up to 50% on imported goods from countries that discriminate against U.S. commerce. Trump "has a history of taking the entire legal process to run out the clock," Mills told CNBC. "Tariffs are here to stay." Another driver of instability is the lack of details about the trade agreements that have so far been reached. For instance, Trump announced trade deals with Indonesia and the Philippines , but the specifics have yet to be confirmed. Additionally, officials from other countries including Japan and South Korea have disagreed with Trump on the terms of their agreements, signaling they have not yet been finalized. Unsettled "Foreign officials describe the few details differently than Trump and his top advisors, so even some of the high-level features have not been ironed out," Laperriere wrote. "These deals aren't settled and are built in part on phony promises. They could easily fall apart." On top of that, some trading partners, such as the European Union, are unlikely to live by their deals for very long, he claimed. Last month, Trump said that he reached a deal with the bloc , one that involves a 15% tariff on most European goods coming into the U.S. But European leaders and analysts criticized the deal shortly thereafter, calling it "unbalanced." Meanwhile, no final agreements have been reached between the U.S. and key partners such as Canada, Mexico and China . In fact, Trump last Monday delayed imposing additional tariffs on Chinese goods for another 90 days. The president could meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping "around the [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] summit" in the fall, though "what happens at that meeting is a big wild card," Mills said. "There are going to be some countries where they're able to get to a final agreement and other countries where they fall apart," Mills said to CNBC. "I think that the larger the trading partner is, the more likely they are going to find a way to get to yes." 'Priced out' risk Even with some of Trump's tariffs going into effect, the stock market has soared to all-time highs this summer, underscoring optimism that the U.S. economy can withstand threats of high tariffs at home and abroad. Yet, Laperriere believes Wall Street isn't properly accounting for the potential impacts of the duties on the economy. For now, JPMorgan projects that tariffs could result in about a 1% hit to gross domestic product. Prediction markets have been pricing out recession risk, with the likelihood down to 10% over the weekend from about 70% in May. That suggests markets were either pricing in a recession scenario that was "too high in early May or it's too low now," Laperriere said. "The broader tariff risk is arguably completely priced out of markets, though individual companies and sectors that would be adversely impacted by them have generally underperformed," he wrote in a report in early August. Ultimately, perhaps, the biggest unknown remains the quixotic "Trump factor," which can't be quantified, Brian Gardner, Stifel's chief Washington policy strategist, said in an interview. "He can change his mind at any given time, and has, as some of these deals have progressed," he said. "There's nothing to prevent him from changing his mind again down the road."
