(The Center Square) – A pair of bills related to promoting nuclear energy’s future in Wisconsin passed through Assembly committee on Wednesday with its $2.25 million appropriation removed.
Instead, that funding would come via Wisconsin’s Economic Development Corp.
The bills create a nuclear siting study and holding a nuclear power summit.
The siting study in the amended Assembly Bill 108 would now also include fusion generation and would be due to the Legislature 19 months after the bill goes into effect.
Assembly Bill 132 would require the organization of a Nuclear Power Summit in Madison at a new University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering building.
Rep. Moore Omokunde, D-Milwaukee, voted against the siting study, saying that nuclear energy is further down the line for the state and that it would be “cart before the horse” to do siting while nuclear energy is making advancements.
“I am a big proponent of renewable energy, I am a big proponent of having our portfolio as large as it can be, renewable and nonemitting energy,” Omokunde said.
Omokunde, however, voted for the nuclear summit, saying he would attend the event and hopes it could be a “genuine, authentic conversation” about nuclear power instead of a pep rally to expand nuclear energy.
Rep. David Armstrong, R-Rice Lake, said he differentiates between renewable and base power and that many things such as data centers need reliable base power that doesn’t “go up and down as the wind blows and sun shines.”
He believes nuclear is necessary “until you can get to the point where batteries are so good that they are a base power,” which he estimated could happen in the 2050s and 2060s.

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee Public Schools are going to lose state money, again.
The state’s Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday confirmed that it will withhold money because the district missed the end-of-May deadline to turn in last year’s financial report.
“Withholding funding is a last resort and comes after countless hours spent supporting MPS,” Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy said in a statement. ”Meeting key deadlines is critical to ensure the DPI can accurately and efficiently calculate general aid estimates for school districts across Wisconsin.”
It is unclear how much money is to be withheld; the state anticipates an announcement later in the week. Last year’s missed deadline by the district cost more than $16 million.
The news came on the same day as the district debuted its budget for the 2025-26 school year.
That budget tops $1.5 billion. It would append nearly $23,000 per student, and leave Milwaukee Public Schools with a $22 million deficit that’s expected to hit $145 million by 2030.
McCarthy said the state has “seen real progress in recent months” from the Milwaukee district, and said the state “recognizes and appreciates the hard work that has gone into those efforts.”
McCarthy said the district must suffer some consequences.

(The Center Square) – Increasing the number of films and TV shows shot in Wisconsin is one of three priorities for Wisconsin’s Department of Tourism, Secretary Anne Sayers told the Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism.
The others are increasing group travel to the state and outdoor recreation from a department that is hoping for $35 million in funding that was proposed by Gov. Tony Evers in the state’s next budget.
“I know that the Department of Tourism is committed to, if we get this opportunity again, doing it right and really showing that return on investment for our state,” Sayers told the committee. “Just turning on one more revenue stream that adds to that bottom line for tourism but adds to that multi-billion dollars in revenue for our state.”
Senate Bill 231 would re-start a film tax credit worth a maximum $10 million annually in the state along with creating a film office through the department of tourism and adding three full-time staff positions.
The bill has been approved by several committees but has not yet reached the full Assembly or Senate.
The 30% tax credit would apply to income paid to Wisconsin residents up to $250,000 apiece, transferable credits for film-related expenses in the state and credits for acquiring or improving property that wasn’t owned before Dec. 31, 2025.
The state previously had film tax credits until 2013.
“We have lost so much more than we have been able to say yes to because we don’t have those film tax credits and we don’t have staff to be connecting the dots between this very robust industry,” Sayers said. “We’re watching other states continue to be able to grow their film industries and, while we have done what we can, we know we have so much more potential and it feels like this moment where the iron is hot and we must strike, especially coming off of Top Chef.”
In addition to the $10 million in tax credits, the bill would cost $199,300 in financial year 2027 and $254,000 the next year to fund three full-time employees in a film office.
Film credits like those larger credits used in Georgia were supported by the bill’s Wisconsin sponsors and Sayers but have been panned by economists as a tax cost that isn’t worth it for taxpayers.
Economist J.C. Bradbury of Georgia’s Kennesaw State University extensively studied Georgia’s larger film credit program, writing in a peer-reviewed paper that the state spent $230 per household on foregone tax revenue because of the initiative, which has cost taxpayers the equivalent of $110,000 per full-time job in the industry without bringing the promised benefits from the program.

(The Center Square) – Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, said he has been confused at the polling place. He has heard others confused. He has even seen yard signs that have to resort to oversimplifying a ballot initiative or referendum, simply stating “Vote no and no.”
“The reason they had to do that is that no one understood what was being asked,” O’Connor said at a Tuesday public hearing on Assembly Bill 207. “That’s not fair.”
O’Connor and other lawmakers are working to pass legislation that would change that, in some ways.
Assembly Bill 207 would require all referenda or proposed constitutional amendments in the state to include a full explanation of the amendment or referendum, date it will be on the ballot and a plain language explanation of its impact that will be available on one page for voters on Election Day.
The content of the final three questions must fit on a 3-by-5 card or 8½-by-11 sheet of paper in 12-point font that must be posted at election polling places.
The explanation will also be mailed with absentee ballots, something that Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli told the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections could add to the cost of mailing ballots.
The bill also shifts the responsibility for an impact statement related to the amendment or referendum from the state attorney general to bill.
“This is not a partisan bill,” O’Connor said. “This is a voter benefit bill.”
O’Connor said that the City of Madison, American Civil Liberties Union and League of Women Voters all back the bill.
“This is probably the first time I have had that trio backing a bill that I drafted,” he said.
Current law continues, requiring that ballot questions may not require a negative vote to be approved or a positive vote to disapprove.
The bill was introduced by a group of 20 Republican representatives and is co-sponsored by four Republican senators.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Democrats are attacking gun violence and rising suicide and homicide rates with a series of gun bills that would also bring back a 48-hour waiting period to buy a hand gun.
The announcement came at a Tuesday news conference that included several Democrat lawmakers and Attorney General Josh Kaul.
According to Rep. Shelia Stubbs, D-Madison, the legislation comes at an important time in the wake of the December Abundant Life Christian School shooting.
“By the end of this year, an average of 741 Wisconsinites will lose their lives to gun violence,” Stubbs said. “An additional 1,686 people will be injured by a gun. Sixty-nine of those fatalities will be children and teens.”
In Wisconsin the rate of gun deaths increased by 54%, from 2014 to 2023, 20% higher than the national average, according to Stubbs.
Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, announced a bill reinstating a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for hand guns purchases in Wisconsin.
The same 48-hour legislation had stood for nearly 40 years until former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans repealed it, leading to an unprecedented rise in gun violence and suicides, according to Larson.
“Gun suicide deaths have increased by 52%, from 350 [deaths] in 2014 to 532 [deaths] in 2022,” Larson said. “Every suicide is preventable, and adding a waiting period, as we should, puts a barrier between someone making an irrational decision and an irreversible harm.”
Larson argued the waiting period could help prevent both suicides and homicides in the state, saying waiting period laws in states that already have them reduce gun homicides by 17%.
There are currently 13 other states with mandatory waiting periods, according to Larson.
Kaul advocated for ghost gun legislation, saying Wisconsin state law currently doesn’t provide a required background check process for them.
However, because ghost guns were recently designated as firearms by a Supreme Court decision, preventive measures can now be taken against them, according to Kaul.
“Ghost guns make it easy for people who perhaps have been convicted of a felony or who are not permitted to own a firearm to get their hands on one,” Kaul said. “By banning them or treating them like other firearms by making them go through the background check process, we could ensure that loophole is closed.”
Darryl Morin, president of Forward Latino and co-founder of the 80% Coalition for Gun Violence Prevention, pushed against the narrative that gun violence in Wisconsin is only predominant in racially diverse, metropolitan areas like Madison or Milwaukee.
“We had 830 gun deaths in Wisconsin [in 2022], and 529 were Wisconsinites who took their own lives with a firearm,” Morin said. “Fifthy-seven-percent of those [taking their own lives] were white males over the age of 34.”
Morin concluded that gun homicides and suicides are not city or minority issues, but “a state of Wisconsin issue.”
“This is a public health and safety crisis,” Stubbs said. “We should be ashamed right here in the state of Wisconsin. We should be embarrassed in the state of Wisconsin. There is absolutely solutions to this violence and concrete steps we can take to make our communities safer for all.”
Republican legislators did not immediately respond for comment at the time of publication.

(The Center Square) – Separating the funding for Wisconsin’s school choice program from the state’s public school funding formula could either be a smart fix to simplify funding Wisconsin’s school choice program or it could lead to a large cost increase on the state budget.
The term decoupling is used for the process, which Badger Institute wrote “helps both districts and taxpayers” while a report from the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials said that it would “obscure the state and local fiscal impacts of the program and impede crucial public scrutiny of private voucher costs at the local level.”
Last year, a decoupling bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly but not the Senate. The plan could be a topic of discussion soon in the Legislature this year.
The reports come as Forward Analytics published a report showing that decoupling would have saved local property taxpayers $337 million this year but that expense would have been shifted to $343 million in additional state funding.
“Contrary to the notion that the term ‘decoupling’ refers to a small fix to correct a simple problem, we find that such proposals could contribute to the expansion of vouchers in Wisconsin without contending with the significant surge in costs they could impose on the state budget and Wisconsin taxpayers or the policy tradeoffs such costs would require,” wrote WASBO Research Director Anne Chapman.
Chapman claimed that many of the students funded through school choice are students who previously had their private school tuition paid by parents.
“Chapman just misreads the data,” Badger Institute’s Jim Bender and Patrick McIlhern wrote. “When she says that 95% of choice students came from a private school, that’s because the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction counts every child who returns for another year as having come from a private school, regardless of whether they previously switched from public school.
“This past year, 80% of choice students simply returned for another year, their parents satisfied with the education delivered. Only 5% were new to choice because they switched from paying on their own.”
The Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty said last year that the decoupling plan was a benefit to public schools, taxpayers and choice schools.
“School districts would no longer see their aid reduced for the cost of the voucher or charter students, leading to a property tax cut and access to more state aid,” WILL wrote. “Instead, choice and charter schools would be funded by the state. In addition, the bill includes a provision for school districts to recoup 25% of the revenue limit authority they used to receive for voucher students—leading to additional revenue per pupil for the vast majority of districts in the state.”
The Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association recently wrote about its opposition of decoupling, claiming that voucher supporters don’t want the public to know how much is being spent on school choice programs despite the fact the plan would separate school choice program funding into one line in the budget.
“De-coupling vouchers from local school district funding makes a constitutional court challenge to the voucher program much more difficult (or as a report from 2023 points out, de-coupling “insulates” vouchers from court challenges),” AFT President Jon Shelton wrote. “Second, it means it will be even more difficult for taxpayers to understand how vouchers threaten public schools.”

(The Center Square) – A bipartisan bill addressing staffing shortages in Wisconsin’s small and rural police agencies is under consideration in the state legislature.
Police academy training in Wisconsin can cost an average of $5,000 or more, and the cost increases grow once six months of on-the-job training and labor costs are factored in.
The grant program established would aim to cover the cost for small police departments that couldn’t provide for the training out of pocket like larger departments, according to a press statement by Rep. Clinton Anderson, D-Beloit, the bill’s co-author.
“Smaller and rural law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin often struggle to maintain adequate staffing levels,” Anderson said. “This bipartisan bill provides meaningful support by helping agencies afford officers’ salaries during training.”
Anderson said the bill is a smart, targeted investment in public safety and in the future of small police departments across Wisconsin.
According to a 2024 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 81% of agencies in Midwestern states reported having more trouble recruiting new officers in the past five years compared to agencies in the Southern and Western United States.
“Smaller agencies (72%) were also slightly more likely to report difficulties with their recruitment efforts, compared to midsize (69%) and large (63%) agencies,” the survey found.
The survey noted one respondent who described how recruiting had “starkly” changed over the past decade.
“In this day and age, we have to go and find good candidates, whereas 10 years ago, candidates would be constantly calling and inquiring about job openings,” the respondent said.
Ryan Windorff, president of the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police, expressed strong support for the bill, saynig it would tackle the staffing shortages head-on.
“The vast majority of law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin are small, employing 25 or fewer officers, and these departments often face significant recruitment struggles and budget constraints,” Windorff told The Center Square. “Unlike larger departments that can offer paid training and other competitive benefits, smaller agencies struggle to attract and retain qualified officers, exacerbating staffing shortages.”
Windorff said the bill would level the playing field, enabling smaller agencies to recruit and retain talent in the face of retirements and high vacancy rates.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s two Democratic members of Congress say they’re disappointed with the visit to the state’s ICE detention center.
Madison Congressman Mark Pocan and Milwaukee Congresswoman Gwen Moore made a surprise visit to the detention center in Dodge County recently.
They said they were there to perform federal oversight, and demanded to see whoever was being held for ICE.
Moore said she wanted to see one, specific detainee.
“I was particularly concerned about one detainee, Ramon Morales-Reyes, who you may all recall was falsely accused of writing a threatening letter to President Trump,” Moore said. “I was unable to see him, because they say I would have had to give notice to be able to actually see him. Although I was there under my prerogatives and privileges as a member of Congress for oversight and didn’t really need an appointment.”
Dodge County’s sheriff, however, said Moore’s Congressional prerogatives didn’t apply.
“This is not an ICE facility, which a congressperson has the ability to just come in, walk in, whenever they want to do an inspection,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt explained.
He said the ICE detainees are being held in his jail, and Congress has nothing to do with his jail. Still, the sheriff gave Moore and Pocan a tour.
Pocan said afterwards that he was upset that he couldn’t speak with anyone from ICE, or any of the detainees.
“They (Doge County) do get very good grades as a facility…It’s a very clean facility, the ICE detainees are treated, and housed equally with county detainees that they have at the jail,” Pocan explained. “I think the real questions we had were for ICE.”
Pocan said ICE officials in Milwaukee didn’t initially answer the phone, but later called back. Though Pocan said they didn’t have immediate answers for him then.
Moore said she’s working with ICE, and said she hopes to return to the jail next week to meet with the detainees being held there.

(The Center Square) – The Supreme Court is set to make a decision regarding the tax-exempt status of organizations that do not comply with state qualifications for “religious purposes.”
The case, Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, came to the high court after the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked a religious social services organization from receiving tax-exempt status.
Catholic Charities Bureau provides social services including job placement and coaching for people with disabilities, daily living services and support programs through its umbrella of service entities.
Through its services, the Catholic charities do not require participants or employees to be of a particular religious faith and the programs do not require religious training or promotion of the Catholic faith.
In 2016, the bureau applied for an exemption of state unemployment insurance contributions due to its status as a religious organization. After years of back and forth, the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked the organization’s request for a tax-exemption, where an appeal sent the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court heard arguments for the case in March where a majority of justices appeared to be in favor of Catholic Charities.
“It just seems as though Wisconsin says we’re going to set up this system that is operating in a discriminatory fashion,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.
The justices took issue with the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s requirement that a religious organization proselytize in order to attain the special tax status.
“I thought it was pretty fundamental that we don’t treat some religions better than other religions,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “We certainly don’t do it based on the content of what those religious doctrines teach,” she continued.
The First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal organization, filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the catholic charities.
Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, said the issue goes beyond one case in Wisconsin.
“In the last year or two, we have seen an alarming number of cases coming up where local governments are trying to shut down benevolence ministries,” Gardner told The Center Square.
He said if the Supreme Court affirms Wisconsin’s decision, the government will be able to determine religious activity, which would entangle the state in religious affairs.
Gardner added that he takes issue with the government requiring certain religious activities to obtain a special tax status.
“The founders did not want the government intruding on church affairs and interfering with how a religious organization goes about conducting its religious business,” Gardner said.
The highest court is set to decide the case of religious tax exemptions before the end of its current term, which typically ends in June. The case of religious liberties will join several other high profile decisions the court is expected to issue this term.

(The Center Square) – The overturning of Wisconsin’s Act 10 was judicial overreach and took power over Wisconsin’s budget away from the Legislature, a new amicus brief argues.
The Buckeye Institute argued that a Wisconsin circuit court’s decision to overturn Act 10 interrupts the balance between the legislative and judicial branches.
“The careful constitutional balance envisioned by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution is based on a crucial element—judicial deference to legislative policy decisions – especially those relating to government spending,” Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute, said in a statement. “In practical terms, this means that for the opponents of Wisconsin’s Act 10, their remedy is found in the statehouse, not the courthouse.”
Signed into law in 2011 by then-Gov. Scott Walker, Act 10 limited most public sector union contract negotiations to salaries only and capped those salary increases to the rate of inflation.
The legislation was challenged and overturned in a ruling by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jacob Frost in December.
The ruling said that the two classes of employees created by Act 10, “general” and “public safety,” violated equal protection guarantees, and that all public service workers should have the same rights to negotiate with employers about subjects beyond wages, such as health care and retirement benefits.
The Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty estimated that Act 10 has saved taxpayers in Wisconsin more than $17 billion in the decade-plus that it’s been a law, and that ending Act 10 could cost local governments nearly $500 million going forward.

(The Center Square) – The Madison Metropolitan School District has proposed a 2026 budget to support new staff, increased wages and construction projects that would raise district property taxes by $80.5 million, or 20.2%.
The plan would cause property taxes to rise by $834 annually on an average-value Madison home on Dec. 2025 tax bills, according to a report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
This would be more than twice as large as the previous record for the district’s property tax increase, according to Wisconsin Policy Forum’s available data going back to 1994.
The property tax ask comes as the budget predicts a decrease in both state and federal funding. It also calls for the district to dip into its reserves.
“These investments in district operations, staff salaries, and capital projects will come at a substantial cost to taxpayers and have not necessarily solved all of the district’s financial difficulties,” the report finds.
The budget follows the passing of two MMSD referenda last November, with 69% of voters approving a $100 million referendum to fund staff and student programs and 72% voting in favor of a $507 million facilities referendum to improve ten schools.
This follows renovations to four high schools funded separately through a $317 referendum in 2020.
“As the oldest district in Dane County, MMSD has many aging facilities,” MMSD said in a statement. “Twenty-six of our schools were built 60-plus years ago. Some of those buildings were not built to last this long, and we are seeing that now with some of the critical needs we have to address.”
MMSD estimates construction on the 10 schools would last five years, over three phases, beginning in 2026.
Though the district has high property values, nearly half of students come from low-income families, according to the report. Additionally, more than one-fifth of students speak English as a second language and 16% have been assessed as having a disability.
However, unlike most other states, Wisconsin’s main aid formula does not look at these student needs but only at the district’s overall enrollment, spending and property values.
The report concludes that while changing this formula to better reflect the needs of students would not be easy or quick, it could have a substantial impact on Madison.
“With federal funding cuts already a looming concern, the city’s delegation of state lawmakers and business leaders may wish to consider making the state aid formula a greater legislative priority,” the report said. “Without such an approach, the only other major form of relief for property taxpayers in the district would have to come from limiting spending.”

(The Center Square) – A group of Milwaukee aldermen continue to be furious about the state’s latest high-profile immigration arrest.
Fifteen Milwaukee aldermen and alderwomen recently released a statement calling on ICE to arrest the person who actually wrote the letter that threatened President Donald Trump.
“Thanks to our ICE officers, this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote.
The Milwaukee leaders said Noem is wrong.
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary issued a statement condemning an immigrant from Milwaukee for issuing a death threat to the president. It came to light shortly thereafter that the person in question did not write this letter, and in fact was the victim,” the alders wrote.
The alders say Ramon Morales-Reyes did not write a letter last month that threatened Trump.
Immigration advocates have been saying for weeks that Morales-Reyes English, and can’t write well, either. The advocates say there’s no way Morales-Reyes wrote the letter that led to his arrest.
“It is being investigated as to whether the perpetrator of this crime intentionally sent the falsified letter to ICE in an attempt to have this person deported before they could testify in court,” the letter states.
The alders don’t ask for Morales-Reyes to be released, rather they say ICE needs to do better.
“The Department of Homeland Security’s top priority should be protecting the people of this country. In this instance, they did the exact opposite. Their quick triggered incorrect statement caused a man and his family to receive death threats and for him to be detained for something he did not do, while further fueling the anti-immigrant sentiment being pushed at the national level,” the alders wrote. “All things that undermine what should be the department’s chief priority of promoting public safety.”
Morales-Reyes was arrested last month and is being held on charges that he was in this country illegally.

(The Center Square) – A public hearing is set for Tuesday on a bill that would require all referenda or proposed constitutional amendments in the state to include a full explanation of the amendment or referendum, date it will be on the ballot and a plain language explanation of its impact that will be available to voters on Election Day.
The public hearing will be held before the Assembly Committee on Campaign and Elections.
The bill shifts the responsibility for an impact statement related to the amendment or referendum from the state attorney general to bill sponsors while requiring five items to be included: Referendum date, full ballot text, a summary of the current law, an explanation of the effect of a change and an explanation of the impact of a “yes” or “no” vote.
The content of the final three questions must fit on a 3-by-5 card or 8½-by-11 sheet of paper in 12-point font that must be posted at election polling places.
“For at least 30 days prior to the date of a statewide referendum, the complete state referendum disclosure notice must be published by the Elections Commission on the website used for voter registration, currently titled MyVote Wisconsin, or other voter public access website maintained by the commission and must be posted by each county clerk at the county clerk’s office and published by the county clerk on the county clerk’s website,” the bill states.
The notice must also be sent along with absentee ballots.
Rep. Jerry O’Connor, R-Fond du Lac, explained that the bill is intended to help inform voters on what actually is being voted on.
“We appreciate that the referendum question drafted by the Legislative Resource Bureau (LRB) must be written in a language that can be inserted into the constitution,” O’Connor said in a statement. “However, if this legal language requires an attorney to interpret and explain the meaning of the question, this is a disservice to the voters of Wisconsin. They are left in an uninformed position.”
Current law would continue which states that ballot questions may not require a negative vote to be approved or a positive vote to disapprove.
The bill was introduced by a group of 20 Republican representatives and is co-sponsored by four Republican senators.
“In recent years we’ve seen referendums that poll very well, and yet the election results go the other way,” Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said in a statement. “In talking with my constituents they often find the legal jargon on the ballot confusing. This bill addresses this issue, provides clarity for the public, and is a common sense reform.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin voters are very confident in the state’s elections, with 54% of respondents saying so in a new poll released by the bipartisan Democracy Defense Project.
That’s a 7 percentage point increase in those who said they were very confident after the 2024 presidential election.
The polling was conducted with the Tarrance Group and Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates asking 600 registered likely voters in Wisconsin questions from April 7-10.
“Wisconsin elections are important as ever and we will continue to have all eyes on us as we head into another election cycle,” the defense project members said in a statement. “Despite running a tight ship throughout the election season and faith in election integrity rising, Wisconsin still has a reputation problem.
“There has been an erosion of faith in our democracy with politicians undermining election integrity to bolster their campaign allowing false narratives about ‘stolen elections’ to take root.”
The Wisconsin group includes former Attorney General JB Van Hollen, former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, former U.S. Representative Scott Klug and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate.
Van Hollen and Klug were Republican politicians while Barnes and Tate were Democrats.
The poll showed that 48% don’t trust what will happen in Milwaukee County, up 2 percentage points from a July 2024 poll.
But those who believe election workers and officials are “partisans trying to manipulate the process” went down 12 points.
Most of the respondents believe that pre-processing of ballots on Monday of elections to speed up the process of vote counting is a good idea with 76% supporting the idea, 40% of which strongly supported it.
Voters also want statewide drop box rules with 79% favoring it and 51% strongly supporting the idea.
“This poll shows we need to continue working to restore faith and trust in institutions currently under attack and we need a two-pronged approach to educate voters on the process to restore credibility and we need reforms like pre-processing to instill more confidence in the process,” the group said. “These together will bring meaningful change.”

(The Center Square) – There’s once again anger in Wisconsin over what to call pregnant women.
Republicans in the state are furious with a piece of legislation from Democrats that replaces the word mother with a slew of gender-neutral terms as part of an LGBTQ agenda.
“[Thursday], Democrats introduced a 164-page bill that strikes out the word ‘mother’ over 370 times and replaces it with phrases like ‘pregnant person,’” Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie wrote on social media. “They also use phrases like ‘person’s breastfeeding’ because apparently men can breastfeed. The Party of Science, everyone.”
It’s not just Republicans at the state capitol.
Northwoods Congressman Tom Tiffany also took to social media to express his outrage.
“First, Gov. [Tony] Evers tried to change ‘mother’ to ‘inseminated person.’ Now, Wisconsin Democrats want to change ‘expectant mother’ to ‘pregnant person,” Tiffany wrote. “Why are they so hell-bent on erasing mothers? It’s disrespectful and absurd.”
Evers touched off a wave of anger in February when a piece of his budget changed mother to “inseminated person” in a change to state law dealing with parental custody.
Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol offered a similar defense.
“More than ever we must take steps to ensure equal rights and protections under the law for our Wisconsin LGBTQ+ community and their families. As we have seen basic rights and freedoms be threatened or denied at the federal level, it is important that Wisconsin take our own legislative steps to make sure that every resident of Wisconsin can live authentically as themselves without threat to their marriage, parentage, mental health or safety,” Rep. Lee Snodgrass, D-Appleon, said in a statement. “All Wisconsin citizens deserve equal rights and opportunities under the law and these bills make meaningful steps toward making that a reality.”
The changes to mother are part of one bill, that is part of a larger LGBQ package from Wisconsin Democrats.