Republicans really, really hate it when people vote. They know that the more people that vote, the worse things will go for them. But instead of coming up with policies that the people would support, the Republicans would rather just squash the voice of the people. One would be hard pressed to find where this is truer than Wisconsin.
There was the sordid gerrymandering which was done in secret which boxed in Democrats so badly that even when they receive the majority of voters, they still have a minority in the legislature.
The Republicans also passed a Voter ID law so oppressive that it's caused an estimated one percent reduction in voter turnout:
How much did Wisconsin’s voter identification requirement matter in 2016? We conducted a survey of registered nonvoters in the counties surrounding the cities of Milwaukee and Madison to estimate the number of registrants who experienced ID-related voting difficulties in the 201 presidential election. We estimate that 10 percent of nonvoters in these counties lack a qualifying voter ID or report that voter ID was at least a partial reason why they did not vote in 2016, and six percent of nonvoters lacked a voter ID or cited voter ID as their primary reason for not voting. Theoretically, we argue that voter ID requirements ‘‘directly’’ affect voters who lack qualifying IDs but also ‘‘indirectly’’ affect voters who are confused about their compliance with the law. We find evidence of such confusion, with many respondents mistakenly believing that they did not have th necessary ID to vote when they actually did. Our analysis permits us to calculate bounds on the possible turnout effect in 2016. Most of our credible estimates suggest that the voter ID requirement reduced turnout in these counties by up to one percentage point.
For their latest stunt, the right returned to one of their favorite things - voter caging.
The misnamed Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty - a Bradley Foundation front group - filed a law suit demanding that nearly a quarter million voters be purged from voter rolls because they may have moved because they didn't respond to a letter within a month to voter caging letters.
Oh, and in what I am sure is just pure coincidence (not really), these voter caging letters just so happened to not be sent out in an impartial manner, but to target Democratic areas and areas with the highest African American populations, like Milwaukee and Madison:
The letters went to about 7% of Wisconsin's registered voters, but were concentrated more heavily in some parts of the state than others.
Milwaukee and Madison — the state's Democratic strongholds — account for 14% of Wisconsin's registered voters but received 23% of the letters.
Across the state, 55% of the letters went to municipalities where Democrat Hillary Clinton out-polled Trump in 2016.
This decision will be almost certainly appealed immediately, but don't hold your breath for a better outcome. The right wing special interests control five of the seven seats on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The real kicker is that these right wing snowflakes are the first to scream about changing the will of the people when the issue is something like holding a criminal Republican president* accountable for his criminal behaviors.
