Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, the former Republican attorney general backed by conservatives, is pushing Donald Trump supporters to the polls in the final hours of campaigning.
“It’s a turnout race,” the Waukesha County judge said on WISN’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics. “It’s going back to Nov. 5 and getting conservative voters to understand why this is important. If we get 60% of the people who voted for President Trump to come out April 1 and vote for me, in all likelihood that means I win.”
Schimel said he talked with both Trump and Elon Musk ahead of Trump’s official endorsement.
“He said, ‘Hello, Brad, it’s your favorite president,” Schimel recalled. “And then we had a bit of a conversation, and he talked about activist judges. He’s very frustrated with them right now, as I think everybody knows. He put Elon Musk on for a little while. That was the first time I ever spoke with Elon Musk.”
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Schimel, in the interview Thursday afternoon said he didn’t know much about Musk’s initial $1 million giveaway to a Green Bay man who signed a petition opposing “activist judges” and the $100 Musk’s America PAC was offering to Wisconsin voters who signed it.
“I frankly have thought about, should I sign that petition?” Schimel said. “I’m against activist judges, but I don’t think I should do that.”
Schimel said the closing argument is that Wisconsinites need to “take this race seriously.”
“So much is at stake,” he said. “We have to put the court back in its proper role where it’s not making the law, it’s not going through a political agenda. It is applying the law the way the Legislature writes it.”
Meanwhile, liberal candidate Susan Crawford is hammering Musk in the final hours of the campaign telling Democratic voters Schimel has tied himself to the billionaire.
“I just think it’s important for voters to understand the truth and to know the facts about what’s happening out there,” the Dane County judge told “UpFront.” “This is really unprecedented, to have the richest man in the world weighing into a state Supreme Court race and spend that kind of money. That’s never happened before.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently touted the importance of the race, saying Wisconsin’s congressional maps are “gerrymandered” and need to be revisited “as soon as possible” while praising Crawford as a “strong Democratic candidate.”
“Well, you know, people say all kinds of stuff, and I can’t control what people say,” Crawford said. “And there have been a lot of hopes and dreams on potential future cases that don’t exist yet, and what I’ve said all along is that any case that comes in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I’ll make a decision at the appropriate time after I know what the facts are based on the evidence, after I’ve heard what the attorneys’ legal arguments are, and on the Wisconsin Supreme Court after I’ve conferred with the other justices.”
Crawford, who was recently endorsed by former President Barack Obama, said she hasn’t spoken with him, but she “appreciates his interest in the race.”
“We need a great turnout,” Crawford added, looking ahead to Tuesday. “I’m really excited to hear that the early voting has been pretty robust throughout the state. I’m traveling around the state, hitting as many communities as we can to continue to encourage early voting and on Election Day voting for those who missed the deadline to early vote. But I just want to make sure that people understand what’s at stake here.”
As Kaul attempted to prevent any future payments from Musk to Wisconsin voters, Wisconsin’s top elections chief says she can’t say if the Wisconsin Elections Commission has received any formal complaints.
“We’ve received quite a few calls about it as well,” Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told “UpFront.” “We have to follow what’s in the law in terms of how a complaint is filed with our office. There are two types of complaints, one is confidential. It’s called a 5.05 complaint. And one is a complaint that the commission is going to take publicly, that’s called a 5.06 complaint.
“With the 5.05 complaints, those are allegations of a criminal nature,” Wolfe added. “They’re covered in Chapter 12 of the Wisconsin statutes. Those have to remain confidential, and so we’re not able to disclose whether or not there are any of those types of complaints that have been filed with our office.”
Looking to Election Day Tuesday, Wolfe said Trump’s recent executive order on elections, including a provision requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, will have no impact on this election. But she but couldn’t speculate on what it may mean for future elections.
“I don’t,” she said. “But I can say with real confidence that in the state of Wisconsin, only U.S. citizens are able to vote, and that’s solidified in Wisconsin state statutes and in the Wisconsin constitution, so only U.S. citizens can vote in Wisconsin elections. And that’s already the law. It’s already illegal for non-citizens to be able to cast a ballot in Wisconsin elections.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently ruled Wolfe can stay in her post as administrator despite not being reappointed and confirmed by the state Senate.
“I plan to just focus my attention right now on administering the Tuesday, April 1 election,” Wolfe said when asked about her future. “It’s an important election, and all my attention and focus is remaining there. And then we’ll see what comes after that. But for right now, I’m focused on administering the Tuesday election.”
Paulina Gutierrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, says it could be midnight before the city finishes processing absentee ballots election night.
“It’s very difficult to make that assumption with–you never know what could happen,” Gutierrez told “UpFront.” “If we’re thinking about 50,000 ballots, something around midnight, likely, maybe sooner.”
State law prohibits cities like Milwaukee that use a central count location from beginning to process ballots until Election Day. Bipartisan legislation to allow election officials to start that process early has failed to pass the full Legislature.
In November, the city had to reprocess 34,000 ballots after a voting machine wasn’t properly secured. Gutierrez says new systems are in place to ensure that doesn’t happen again Tuesday.
“We are focused on operational excellence,” Gutierrez said. “And so after every central count, we do an after-action review. And we really did a thorough analysis of what happened and how can we prevent that in the future, and so we have increased our policies and procedures to make them easier to read, doing double checks and follow-up phone calls to make sure that things are processed correctly and that we have all the machines that will be secure, locked and sealed, and observers are there. That’s the best part about central count is that our observers hold us accountable, and they brought it to our attention.”
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