Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Appeals court puts temporarily hold on Wisconsin voter purge

Wisconsin voters

Officials in Wisconsin have not carried out a judge's order to remove from the rolls more than 200,000 voters who seem to have moved.

Darren Hauck/Getty Images

Update: The headline has been updated to reflect late developments on Tuesday, when an appeals court temporarily stopped the state from removing approximately 200,000 people from the Wisconsin voters rolls. In addition, one of the judges put on hold a ruling that found election commissions in contempt of court. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has more information.

Wisconsin's top court has cleared the way for about 209,000 people to be taken off the state's voter rolls, even while an appeal continues of a lawsuit about the future of the registration lists in one of the most prominent 2020 battlegrounds.

The state Supreme Court issued the order Monday night, just hours after a trial judge held three state election commissioners in contempt and ordered the panel to proceed immediately with the removal of the names.

The fight is at the most advanced stage of the several in bellwether states over the accuracy of their poll books. And how it's ultimately resolved could be enormously consequential for the presidential election. That's because the number of registrations in dispute is nine times larger than the margin of victory in 2016, when Donald Trump took the state's 10 electoral votes as the first GOP nominee to carry Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter


Trump was scheduled to campaign in Milwaukee on Tuesday, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission was preparing to meet in emergency session to decide what to do next.

Circuit Court Judge Paul Malloy, of suburban Ozaukee County near Milwaukee, had ruled last month that state law required that more than 200,000 people who apparently have moved should have their registrations canceled.

But the state has not carried out that order. While its three Republican appointees are ready to do so, the three Democrats wanted to wait for an appellate court to weigh in.

"We're deadlocked, time is running and time is clearly of the essence," the judge said in announcing the contempt citations and ordering the purge to move forward during the appeal process.

Those who are removed from the rolls in error may re-register before or on Election Day.

The conservative groups who sued to accelerate the culling of the names say that finding and removing outdated information is essential for reducing the potential for fraud and boosting the integrity of the state's elections. But liberal and civil rights groups say the effect will be to disqualify and confuse voters, especially those in urban areas and college towns who move often — and who likely to support Democratic candidates.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis of the list of voters that are believed to have moved concluded that 55 percent have last known addresses in municipalities that Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 election. The highest concentrations are in the state's biggest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, and other places with campuses.

Read More

Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

A stethoscope and gavel.

Getty Images, ATU Images

Project 2025: Anti-Abortion Blueprint Quietly Taking Hold

Last spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part series on Project 2025. Now that Donald Trump’s second term has started, Part 2 of the series has commenced.

While the national spotlight often falls on state-level abortion bans or Supreme Court rulings, a quieter but more transformative effort is underway in Washington. In his second term, President Donald Trump is not simply revisiting past culture war battles—he’s enacting a structural overhaul of federal reproductive health policy, rooted in a sweeping plan known as Project 2025.

Keep ReadingShow less
Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

Morning drop-off at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning.

Claire Murphy

Chicago Head Start Programs Face Uncertainty After Regional Office Closure

ALBANY PARK – The laughter of preschool children permeates the hallways of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning on a sunny Thursday morning in Albany Park.

Teachers line their students up outside classrooms, counting names off one by one. Children congregate by their playmats and colorful rugs, about to be served breakfast.

Keep ReadingShow less
Man looking at stocks on his phone. Stock market.

As Trump pushes disruption, the markets push back.

Getty Images, Alistair Berg

The Markets Strike Back: Why Trump’s Economic Fantasies Keep Crashing into Reality

Trump may have won the election, but he’s losing the markets. In just 100 days, Wall Street has erased nearly $6 trillion in global equity value, according to Bloomberg data cited in The Guardian. The S&P 500 has logged one of its worst openings to a presidential term since the Nixon years. And fund managers—the real-world referees of economic confidence—are sending a message Congress seems unwilling to deliver: enough.

While Trump’s second term has been marked by a tsunami of executive orders, tariff threats, and regulatory purges, the financial markets are refusing to play along. From panicked sell-offs to jittery consumer sentiment and retreating business investment, U.S. capital is staging its own quiet rebellion. Consumer confidence has dropped to its lowest level since 2020, with Americans’ outlook on jobs, income, and business conditions sinking to a 13-year low, according to The Conference Board.

Keep ReadingShow less
Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

Hundred dollar bills.

Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Who Really Pays for Congress? Local Donors All but Disappear in 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. - There is an old saying: All politics is local. However, many voters may get the impression this is becoming less and less a reality -- particularly in US House and Senate elections where candidates are elected to represent specific districts or states, but campaign to a national audience.

This is because local influence in the most contested races is dying out -- a statement not contrived from opinion, but fact.

Keep ReadingShow less