The Republican Party’s naked thirst for power is rarely exposed as viscerally as it has been in Wisconsin over the past few months. After a last-minute bout of legal wrangling, Wisconsin is moving forward with in-person elections Tuesday in a bald attempt to use the coronavirus crisis as a mechanism for voter suppression. The party could emerge with blood on its hands, and all for the chance to win a state Supreme Court seat.
Over the past months, as coronavirus has ravaged the country, most states chose to postpone their primary elections rather than require their citizens to endanger themselves by voting in person. Not Wisconsin, though, where the Republican-controlled legislature apparently sensed an opportunity. Beyond just the Democratic primary, the state’s April 7 elections include a vote for a crucial seat on the state Supreme Court, where the conservative judge Daniel Kelly is facing re-election. Republicans foresaw that holding the election during plague conditions — when people are encouraged to stay in their homes and away from others — would suppress voter turnout in major cities, giving their party a huge advantage.
At first, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers agreed with his colleagues across the aisle, believing that the election should continue as planned. But as time wore on, and the scale of the crisis became more evident, Evers’s fellow Democrats in the statehouse became increasingly frantic as they urged him to reconsider. Evers’s “refusal to push for a delay of his state’s Tuesday primary has infuriated fellow Democrats in the state, who are now openly accusing him of failing to prevent an impending train wreck,” Politico reported last week. Continue reading.