Wisconsin Jobs Now, a group supported by SEIU Wisconsin, has recently been doing amazing GOTV work in the predominantly African American wards of northern Milwaukee - wards in Republican recall target Alberta Darling's district.
They've conducted five big block parties. These are great summer celebratory events that include DJs, bbq, and conversation. Kids come and play. Teens hang out and talk. Parents and young voters are able to ask questions. Vans leave on constant rotation, taking people down to City Hall for early voting. The events are non-partisan: focussed entirely on the process of voting, not on whom to cast the vote. They share sample ballots, answer questions, and give anxious people a sense of support. Be a voter: it matters!
Beyond these neighborhood parties they have been phone banking, lit dropping, and running three vans from numerous convenient locations throughout the week. And it has worked. They have gotten hundreds of people down to vote. Hundreds each day! Folks, this is how we "re-enfranchise." This is how to do it! It is hard work, but it works.
Except... well, ugh, success gets the ire and attention of The Suppressors. Charlie Sykes, local rightwing radio gabberjab, is now scandal mongering. In an article "Ribs for Votes Raises Legal Questions" he insinuates "vote bribery." In another article headlined "Groups Using Free Food to Win Votes?" he questions the legality of the picnics.
The Government Accountability Board, those same folks who found nothing wrong in the 14,000 votes "found" in Waukesha, suggest that
"whether this event is legal or not could come down to timing.
“If they walk in with a sticker that says ‘I voted ‘that’s one thing, but if they eat before they vote that’s a problem,” Pickett said. “It’s still a questionable practice on way or the other.”..."
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal states,
"State law prohibits anyone from offering a voter any inducement to vote or not vote. Veum said her group (WJN) believed it was complying with the law because no one was required to take the rides or vote to get the food and prizes."
Alberta Darling's campaign manager, in an oddly recursive mode, stated that he was concerned about the allegations, adding, "If it smells shady and it looks shady … It looks like there's some shadiness going on."
I've never smelled shadiness, but it must be a fine mix of anxiety and anticipation of defeat. Wisconsin Jobs Now, on their website, tweeted "Is @sykescharlie upset about food at our pro-voting block party, or about low-income Milwaukee residents actually voting?-"
We'll see what happens with this. One thing is evident. Voter suppression and citizen repression is so hardwired into the political game that the slightest resistance will bring down the full forces of the oppressors. The laws are very ambiguous, occult and confusing in terms of what Pacs vs 501c3s vs Super Pacs, vs ordinary citizens are able to legally do regarding expenditures, collaborations, purchases and political expressions. These laws privilege large groups that can hire teams of lawyers. It is meant to be paralyzing, just as Voter ID Laws are meant to discriminate against students, the elderly and the poor.
We've recently witnessed a spate of Republican tactics that seem to go unpunished, such as the shutting down of DMVs, needing bank activity to prove residence, not offering free licenses for voting, sending out mailers to Democrats with the wrong return date, intimidating poll workers... not to mention the new laws themselves which should be deemed a national outrage.
Wisconsin Jobs Now has the resources to work this out, but the sharks are circling in the water, eager to take them down.
Update: Here is the complaint against WJN filed by Media Trackers, a "conservative accountability" group. (Aren't those two terms mutually exclusive?)
Another Update: We have radio gabberjab Charlie Sykes' attention, in all of our paranoid glory... here
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