It's already a well-established fact that Republicans hate democracy. This holds true especially for the Wisconsin Republicans, who are just pawns in the GOP war against democracy. The scary part is that they are just a couple of seats away from having a veto-proof majority in the Wisconsin legislature, which would effectively kill off democracy in the state and lead the way to do it in the rest of the country.
The latest example of their insatiable bloodlust in attacking a privately-funded, nonpartisan GOTV drive in Milwaukee. While the purpose is to get as many eligible voters out to the poll, their will be a special focus on disabled voters, who have also been attacked by Republicans.
In their swamp fevered fugue, Wisconsin Republicans had them convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this effort was the work of Mark Zuckerberg, who had donated millions of dollars to thousands of cities in order to help with the election process in 2020. The Republicans worked themselves up to such a fervor that they recklessly filed two law suits over it.
One lawsuit was a demand for open records, because they were just sure that there was a smoking gun of an email from Zuckerberg with a scheme to cheat Republicans. It was dismissed at the request of the Republicans because they had gotten what they wanted, which apparently was a big old nothingburger.
The second lawsuit was even crazier. It accused the City of Milwaukee of teaming up with a pro-Democratic group to GOTV and demanded an injunction against all these people from doing any GOTV activities. The problem with this suit is that the city is not involved with the program whatsoever, outside of the mayor saying, "Yay, democracy!" They are not partnered with any groups nor are they providing any funding or direction to any GOTV efforts.
Needless to say, this lawsuit was dismissed as well:
A Milwaukee County judge on Friday denied a Republican Party of Wisconsin request to stop the city of Milwaukee from continuing a get-out-the-vote effort that the city argues it neither runs nor funds.
Judge Gwen Connolly wrote that the arguments made by the party and Milwaukee voter Elizabeth Burke were "deficient" and that issuing such an order would chill constitutionally protected free speech.
And in case that point didn't sink into the Republicans' little peabrains, she drove the point home with a hammer:
"While the plaintiffs may have 'significant concerns as to whether the City has been or will be administering the upcoming November 8, 2022, election in accordance with Wisconsin law,' such concerns do not equate to a violation of the law," Connolly wrote.
She found that the Republican Party and Burke had not identified any specific law related to government transparency that was supposedly violated, "in essence, asking this Court to make new law and retroactively impose the law on the defendants in order to ameliorate their 'significant concerns.' The Court is unwilling to do so."
The real reason that the Republicans were so hell bent to stop this initiative is that Milwaukee has the largest Black population of anywhere in the state. Milwaukee is also the second strongest Democratic bastion in the state. The thought of Black Democrats getting to vote was obviously too much for the Republicans' fragile psyches to handle.
