Latest news with #LawForward
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign sues over Musk election payments
Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by) The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is suing billionaire Elon Musk over allegations that he violated multiple state laws, including the election bribery statute, when he offered voters a potential $1 million award for signing a petition as part of his effort to sway the result of Wisconsin's April Supreme Court election. Represented by Wisconsin's Law Forward, Democracy Defenders Fund and New York-based law firm Hecker Fink, the lawsuit accuses the world's richest man of implementing 'a brazen scheme to bribe Wisconsin citizens to vote.' Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, played a major role in this spring's election becoming the most expensive judicial campaign in American history. Musk's involvement in the race, which came as he was leading President Donald Trump's cost-cutting initiatives and firing thousands of federal employees through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was widely seen as causing a backlash and helping Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeat Musk-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel. Musk and his PAC spent more than $20 million on the race. Prior to the election, America PAC offered voters $100 if they signed a petition 'in opposition to activist judges,' and another $100 if they referred another voter to sign the petition. Later, at a pre-election rally in Green Bay, Musk handed out two $1 million checks to voters, which had been advertised as awards 'in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.' The lawsuit, filed in Dane County court, notes it is against the law to offer anyone more than $1 to induce them to go to the polls, vote or vote for a particular candidate. 'By offering and paying Wisconsin citizens amounts far greater than $1 to vote, Defendants violated Wisconsin's election bribery law,' the lawsuit states. 'Defendants' payments and offers of payment to Wisconsin voters, made with the clear intent to aid one candidate and induce Wisconsinites to vote, threatened the integrity of the election and damaged public confidence in the electoral system.' Jeff Mandell, Law Forward's general counsel, said the lawsuit was meant to prevent efforts like Musk's from becoming a regular occurrence. 'We are fighting for free and fair elections,' Mandell said. 'We believe our democracy demands better than schemes like the one detailed in our complaint. So, we are working to hold Musk accountable and stop this from becoming the new normal.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
30-05-2025
- Politics
Wisconsin Elections Commission votes to let small communities hand count ballots
MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin communities with fewer than 7,500 people can hand count ballots under a decision by the state elections commission this week. However, under the Wisconsin Elections Commission decision, those communities and all other Wisconsin towns, villages and cities must still comply with federal law and provide at least one electronic voting machine at a polling location to accommodate voters with disabilities. The commission's decision Tuesday came in reaction to a complaint against the northwestern Wisconsin town of Thornapple, population about 700, over its decision to hand count ballots in the April 2024 presidential primary or the August state primary. The decision also comes as a federal lawsuit over Thornapple's decision not to have an accessible voting machine continues. A federal judge in October sided with the U.S. Department of Justice and ruled Thornapple was violating 2002's Help America Vote Act, or HAVA. The judge ordered the town to offer disabled people accessible voting machines. An appeal by the town is pending. Under the commission's decision this week, communities with fewer than 7,500 people can choose to have no other electronic vote-casting or tabulating machines other than one for disabled voters. Elections commission staff determined state law makes it optional for communities with fewer than 7,500 people to provide voting machines in every ward in every election. The law says those communities may 'adopt and purchase voting machines or electronic voting systems for use in any ward … at any election.' Republican commissioner Bob Spindell said the decision will give smaller communities more flexibility, especially in low-turnout local elections. But But Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs, who cast the lone no vote, said she worried small communities could game the system by selling voting machines purchased with funding from a state grant and then keep the money. The complaint against Thornapple was filed by the liberal law firm Law Forward on behalf of two Thornapple residents. A spokesperson for the law firm did not immediately return an email seeking comment Friday. The commission's decision could be appealed to circuit court.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Law Forward's Jeff Mandell says Wisconsin can save democracy
Wisconsin State Flag | Getty Images The co-founder of Wisconsin's progressive, pro-democracy law firm is not ignoring the tsunami of bad news out of Washington. He's just not letting it drown his optimism. 'I don't think any of us fully anticipated how heavy, broad, fast and extreme the onslaught was going to be,' Jeff Mandell concedes, referring to President Donald Trump's moves to seize unprecedented power, weaponize the federal government against his political enemies, defy court orders, deport people without due process and throw the entire global economy into chaos. 'Some of what we are seeing and hearing is so contrary to our most fundamental understanding of what we believe about our government, I have to believe this is temporary and that people won't stand for it,' Mandell says. Since its founding in October 2020, Law Forward has pursued high-profile lawsuits that have helped claw back democracy in Wisconsin. The firm challenged the state's now-defunct gerrymandered voting maps and uncovered the details of the fake electors scheme that originated here — forcing the Republican officials who posed as members of the Electoral College and cast fraudulent votes for Trump in 2020 to admit they were trying to subvert the will of the voters. On the public website it created to display the details of the scheme, which it obtained as a condition of a settlement, Law Forward stated that it wanted to show 'how close our democracy came to toppling and how the freedom to vote must continue to be protected, not taken for granted.' This week, Law Forward's grievance against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for misconduct in his ill-conceived 'investigation' of voter fraud in the 2020 election led to the suspension of Gableman's law license. As a Wisconsin-based organization, Mandell says Law Forward looks for opportunities to pursue cases that are of particular importance to the state and that shine a light on threats to democracy. 'The rest of the time we don't sit in paralysis because of the news,' he adds. Whatever fresh hell is erupting across the country, 'we continue to work here so people see an alternative.' 'I think building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance,' he adds. 'When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level,' at the state and local level, Mandell says, 'we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance.' Even before Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel last week in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — despite the heavy-handed intervention of Trump and Elon Musk — Mandell was feeling hopeful. He felt Wisconsin showed a 'silver lining' after the November 2024 election, despite Trump's narrow win in the state. Among his reasons for optimism: New, fair voting maps that replaced the old Republican gerrymander, creating a more balanced Legislature; a governor who supports voting rights and democratic institutions; extraordinarily high voter engagement, with Wisconsinites turning out in bigger numbers than in other states in 2024 and overwhelmingly rejecting the MAGA-backed Supreme Court candidate in 2025. With Crawford's win, 'Wisconsin will continue to be a place where we can rely on the courts to protect our fundamental freedoms,' Mandell says. The 10-point margin in last week's election also 'reinforces my conviction that the majority of Wisconsinites really do believe in democracy,' Mandell says. All of those things position Wisconsin to be a leader in the struggle to protect democracy from the Trump onslaught. Wisconsin's long march to recovery from misrule by Gov. Scott Walker and the rightwing billionaires who backed him has been taking us in the opposite direction from the rest of the country. Along with his union-busting Act 10 — challenged by Law Forward and soon to be taken up by the Wisconsin Supreme Court — Walker took a sledgehammer to funding for public education, long before Trump and Musk arrived with their chainsaws. Voters here have been pushing back against the billionaire-financed destruction of civil society for more than a decade. Recently, they've been gaining traction. Law Forward has played an important role in that fight. And it's not over. Mandell has hope not just that Democrats will pick up more seats in the state Legislature as the un-gerrymandered maps go into full effect next year, but that our closely divided state will maintain its longstanding independence and commitment to bipartisan institutions. He draws encouragement from the fact that Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are holding budget hearings around the state, even as Republicans in Washington ram through a budget based on Trump's demands, ignoring the public and ceding their power as members of Congress. Wisconsin's long tradition of good government includes a host of bipartisan commissions, a decentralized elections system that is hard to hack and a great university that has managed to survive waves of attacks by McCarthyites and budget cutters for 176 years. That tradition extends to a bipartisan nominating commission for federal judges, which ought to choose a replacement for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, who announced in March that she is taking semi-retirement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin's office reports it has been in contact with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson's office to reconstitute the charter for the bipartisan nominating commission, as they have done in every Congress under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump could still ignore the process and nominate someone on his own. But three weeks after Sykes' announcement, he hasn't done it yet. If Trump wrecks the economy and steers the whole country into a recession, Wisconsin won't be spared. Nor can we avoid all the shocks of a national authoritarian regime. But our state's independent democratic institutions leave us well situated to recover, and to help the rest of the country remember what civil society looks like. 'There is no one silver bullet,' says Mandell. 'But the goal is to continue to tend the lamp here in Wisconsin, to shine a light that illuminates the path to balance, order and democracy.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Once common, now unusual: Conservative candidate publicly quashes shouts that the other side cheated
PEWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) — As the first news outlets began calling the Wisconsin Supreme Court election for the liberal candidate Susan Crawford, her opponent called her — to concede. Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: 'Cheater.' Schimel didn't hesitate. 'No,' he responded. 'You've got to accept the results.' Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass. In any other American era, Schimel's concession wouldn't be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation's politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don't. 'It shouldn't be super laudable,' said Jeff Mandel, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. 'But given where we are and given what we've seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.' Accusations of cheating are common now Over the past several years, numerous Republicans — and some Democrats — have lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud, harassed election officials and pointed to 'irregularities' to dispute their election losses. President Donald Trump led that movement in 2020, when he filed lawsuits in battleground states, including one thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Schimel's concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today's divisive atmosphere. Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he'd lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford's lead grew to around 10 percentage points. 'The numbers aren't going to — aren't going to turn around,' he told the crowd. 'They're too bad, and we're not going to pull this off.' By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud. Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they've dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat. Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to 'add to political strife through a contentious recount' even as he raised debunked election conspiracies. In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out. Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens. Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the 'future of America and Western civilization.' But after the results came in, he said he 'expected to lose' and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin's Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn't post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win. An assessment: 'That's democracy' Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an 'algorithm' was behind Crawford's win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, 'Election fraud should be investigated." But at Schimel's watch party, several supporters applauded his high road. 'He was all class,' said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. 'That's how you lose.' Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state's congressional districts. 'But you can't exactly change it,' Manka said, calling Schimel 'very graceful' in his defeat. 'This is democracy.' The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: 'We know who won, we know who lost.' He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsinite, understands that. 'It's transparent, and we accept the final score,' Mittleman said. 'That's democracy.' Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride. 'Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?' Schimel said between songs. 'Put it on my tab.' ___ Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed from Madison, Wis. Swenson reported from New York. The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about the AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Associated Press
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Once common, now unusual: Conservative candidate publicly quashes shouts that the other side cheated
PEWAUKEE, Wis. (AP) — As the first news outlets began calling the Wisconsin Supreme Court election for the liberal candidate Susan Crawford, her opponent called her — to concede. Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: 'Cheater.' Schimel didn't hesitate. 'No,' he responded. 'You've got to accept the results.' Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass. In any other American era, Schimel's concession wouldn't be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation's politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don't. 'It shouldn't be super laudable,' said Jeff Mandel, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. 'But given where we are and given what we've seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.' Accusations of cheating are common now Over the past several years, numerous Republicans — and some Democrats — have lobbed unfounded accusations of voter fraud, harassed election officials and pointed to 'irregularities' to dispute their election losses. President Donald Trump led that movement in 2020, when he filed lawsuits in battleground states, including one thrown out by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seeking to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Schimel's concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today's divisive atmosphere. Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he'd lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford's lead grew to around 10 percentage points. 'The numbers aren't going to — aren't going to turn around,' he told the crowd. 'They're too bad, and we're not going to pull this off.' By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud. Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they've dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat. Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to 'add to political strife through a contentious recount' even as he raised debunked election conspiracies. In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out. Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens. Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the 'future of America and Western civilization.' But after the results came in, he said he 'expected to lose' and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin's Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn't post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win. An assessment: 'That's democracy' Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an 'algorithm' was behind Crawford's win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, 'Election fraud should be investigated.' But at Schimel's watch party, several supporters applauded his high road. 'He was all class,' said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. 'That's how you lose.' Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state's congressional districts. 'But you can't exactly change it,' Manka said, calling Schimel 'very graceful' in his defeat. 'This is democracy.' The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: 'We know who won, we know who lost.' He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsinite, understands that. 'It's transparent, and we accept the final score,' Mittleman said. 'That's democracy.' Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride. 'Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?' Schimel said between songs. 'Put it on my tab.' ___
