Buress for Assembly website is up and running; companion to his Facebook page

Look­ing for anoth­er source for infor­ma­tion on every­thing Buress for Assem­bly. Look no fur­ther. Buress, who is run­ning for the 41st assem­bly dis­trict seat now held by Repub­li­can Joan Ball­weg, has unveiled a new Buress for Assem­bly web­site. Buress says that when com­bined with the Buress of Assem­bly Face­book page, vot­ers now have the total pack­age.

When asked what is the dif­fer­ence between the two plat­forms, Buress says vot­ers should con­sid­er the web­site as an online brochure and the Face­book page as a flu­id, dynam­ic, inter­ac­tive plat­form for mes­sag­ing, announce­ments and noti­fi­ca­tions. “Dif­fer­ent plat­forms and dif­fer­ent roles,” Buress sug­gests.

The web­site. he added, has more in-depth infor­ma­tion. For exam­ple, on the Issues page, vot­ers will find a deep­er dive into his posi­tions on a core set of crit­i­cal issues. On the Cam­paign Pho­tos page vis­i­tors will find a pho­to gallery fea­tur­ing pho­tos from the cam­paign. There is also have a Vol­un­teer page where his sup­port­ers can sign up to assist the cam­paign in a vari­ety of ways.

Buress says his Face­book page remains the go-to source for break­ing news and infor­ma­tion. The Face­book page gives peo­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to quick­ly share items with their friends, fam­i­ly, and acquain­tances. It is, he con­cludes, the top source for time-sen­si­tive announce­ments and news.

Consider voting via absentee ballot before the Nov. 6 general election

The critical Nov. 6 general election is closer than you may think

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How to obtain an absentee ballot

  1. Request an absen­tee bal­lot (in per­son, by email, online, or fax)
  2. Fill out the bal­lot
  3. Mail the bal­lot at least a week before the elec­tions.

Who is eligible to use an absentee ballot?

Any qual­i­fied elec­tor (U.S. cit­i­zen, 18 years of age, who has resided in the dis­trict in which he or she intends to vote for at least 10 days) who reg­is­ters to vote is eli­gi­ble to request an absen­tee bal­lot.  Under Wis­con­sin law, vot­ers do not need a rea­son or excuse, such as being out of town on Elec­tion Day, to vote absen­tee.  Any vot­er who prefers to vote by absen­tee bal­lot may request one.  You have sev­er­al options for request­ing an absen­tee bal­lot and cast­ing your vote.

Download an application for an absentee ballot

If you are a reg­is­tered Wis­con­sin vot­er, you can down­load the Appli­ca­tion For Absen­tee Bal­lot (EL-121).  Just com­plete the form and mail it to your munic­i­pal clerk’s office.

You can find your clerk at MyVote WI by search­ing for your vot­er record or per­form­ing an address search. You can also find your clerk by search­ing through the list of all Wis­con­sin munic­i­pal clerks.  

Your appli­ca­tion must be received by the clerk no lat­er than 5 p.m. on the Thurs­day before the elec­tion in order for an absen­tee bal­lot to be SENT to you.  

You will also need to pro­vide a copy of your accept­able pho­to ID with your request.  If you have not pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed a copy of pho­to ID, a copy of your pho­to ID must accom­pa­ny your first appli­ca­tion by mail.  More infor­ma­tion about pho­to ID can be found at www.bringit.wi.gov.

If you are not already reg­is­tered, you will need to reg­is­ter to vote before an absen­tee bal­lot can be sent to you.

Vot­ers who are indef­i­nite­ly con­fined, mean­ing they have a dif­fi­cult time get­ting to the polls due to age, ill­ness, infir­mi­ty, or dis­abil­i­ty, may request that a bal­lot be auto­mat­i­cal­ly sent to them for each elec­tion.  

Indef­i­nite­ly con­fined vot­ers do not need to pro­vide a pho­to ID with their absen­tee bal­lot request.  If you or some­one you know are indef­i­nite­ly con­fined you will make this des­ig­na­tion in box 6 of the Appli­ca­tion for Absen­tee Bal­lot (EL-121).  More infor­ma­tion on the excep­tions to the pho­to ID law can be found at: http://bringit.wi.gov/are-there-exceptions-new-law

Mil­i­tary and Over­seas vot­ers have addi­tion­al options for absen­tee bal­lot deliv­ery. Click here for Mil­i­tary. Click here for Over­seas. Mil­i­tary and per­ma­nent over­seas vot­ers do not need to pro­vide a pho­to ID with their request.  

Or request an application for an absentee ballot by email, online or fax

Reg­u­lar Wis­con­sin vot­ers may also request that a bal­lot be sent to them by send­ing an e-mail or fax to their munic­i­pal clerk. Reg­is­tered vot­ers may also use www.myvote.wi.gov to request their absen­tee bal­lot by click­ing “Vote Absen­tee.” This request must be made no lat­er than 5 p.m. on the Thurs­day before the elec­tion in order for an absen­tee bal­lot to be sent to you.  If you have not pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed a copy of pho­to ID, pho­to ID must accom­pa­ny your appli­ca­tion. More infor­ma­tion about the pho­to ID require­ment can be found at www.bringit.wi.gov.  

How to complete an absentee ballot

You can find detailed instruc­tions for com­plet­ing your absen­tee bal­lot here: Uni­form Instruc­tions for Absen­tee Vot­ers.

Deadlines for returning your absentee ballot

Your com­plet­ed absen­tee bal­lot must be deliv­ered no lat­er than 8 p.m. on Elec­tion Day.  The U.S. Postal Ser­vice rec­om­mends absen­tee bal­lots be mailed one week before Elec­tion Day to arrive in time.

Or you can vote your absentee ballot in person

You can also vote absen­tee at your local munic­i­pal clerk’s office.  If you apply for an absen­tee bal­lot in your munic­i­pal clerk’s office, or anoth­er des­ig­nat­ed loca­tion for in-per­son absen­tee vot­ing, you will vote your bal­lot imme­di­ate­ly in the clerk’s office, seal your bal­lot in the prop­er enve­lope, and return it to a mem­ber of the clerk’s staff.  No bal­lots may be tak­en out of the clerk’s office.

You will need to show your accept­able pho­to ID for vot­ing when vot­ing by in-per­son absen­tee bal­lot.  More infor­ma­tion about accept­able pho­to IDs can be found at www.bringit.wi.gov.

When can you vote using an -in-person absentee ballot

Each city, vil­lage and town in Wis­con­sin is respon­si­ble for set­ting the dates and hours of in-per­son absen­tee vot­ing for their munic­i­pal­i­ty.  To find the dates and hours for in-per­son absen­tee vot­ing where you live, con­tact your munic­i­pal clerk.

Who is your municipal clerk?

The munic­i­pal clerk is the clerk for the City, Vil­lage or Town in Wis­con­sin where you reside.  

If you do not know who your munic­i­pal clerk is, or where the clerk’s office is locat­ed, please use the MyVote Wis­con­sin web­site: myvote.wi.gov to locate your clerk’s con­tact infor­ma­tion.  You can also find your clerk by search­ing a list of all Wis­con­sin Munic­i­pal Clerk Con­tact Infor­ma­tion.

This infor­ma­tion is based on mate­r­i­al pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic by the Wis­con­sin Elec­tions Com­mis­sion on its web­site. Infor­ma­tion tak­en from the site on July 18, 2018.

 

Use the button below to request an absentee ballot today

Get your absen­tee bal­lot today from MyVoteWi

Josh Kaul (attorney general candidates), Ann Groves Lloyd (42nd assembly district) joining us for Sept. 1 meeting at Caestecker Public Library

Join us on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 1, to hear from Democ­rats Josh Kaul and Ann Groves Lloyd. Both can­di­dates will be on the bal­lot on Nov. 6. The two head­line our reg­u­lar month­ly meet­ing of the Green Lake Coun­ty Dems & Friends at the Caesteck­er Pub­lic Library in Green Lake. Start time is 10 a.m. Like all meet­ings of the orga­ni­za­tion, it is open to the pub­lic. Kaul is bat­tling incum­bent Repub­li­can Attor­ney Gen­er­al Brad Schimel.

While Kaul is a first-time can­di­dates for pub­lic office on the state lev­el, he knows well the demands of the office as he is the son of the late Peg Laut­en­schlager, who served as the state’s attor­ney gen­er­al from 2003 to 2007. She was the first woman to be elect­ed to the posi­tion in Wis­con­sin his­to­ry.

Kaul’s Face­book Page says he was a pros­e­cu­tor in Bal­ti­more, “one of America’s most vio­lent cities. There, Josh pros­e­cut­ed mur­der­ers, gang mem­bers, and drug traf­fick­ers, tak­ing dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals off the street and mak­ing com­mu­ni­ties more secure. When Josh came home to Wis­con­sin to raise a fam­i­ly, he took on a new chal­lenge: going to court to fight back against laws that make it hard­er for law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to vote. Josh has been involved in chal­lenges to restric­tive vot­ing mea­sures here in Wis­con­sin, in North Car­oli­na, and in oth­er states.

Josh knows the job of attor­ney gen­er­al has nev­er been more impor­tant or more com­plex. He’s run­ning because he believes the attor­ney gen­er­al needs to focus on pro­tect­ing Wis­con­sin fam­i­lies, not on par­ti­san pol­i­tics.

Josh grew up in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac in a fam­i­ly of law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als and teach­ers. He attend­ed pub­lic schools and played foot­ball and base­ball for the Fondy Car­di­nals. He is the own­er of one share of the Green Bay Pack­ers.  Josh and his wife, Lind­sey, are the proud par­ents of two young boys: Simon (3) and Hen­ry (3 months). Josh took Simon to his first Bad­gers bas­ket­ball game this past sea­son.”

Josh went to col­lege at Yale, where he met his wife, Lind­sey. He majored in his­to­ry and eco­nom­ics and grad­u­at­ed with hon­ors. He then attend­ed Stan­ford Law School, where he served as Pres­i­dent of the Stan­ford Law Review. 
More on John Kaul:
Jour­nal Sen­tinel arti­cle on Kaul;‘s announce­ment that he was run­ning for the attor­ney gen­er­al post.

In June, Groves Lloyd lost a spe­cial elec­tion for the 42nd open assem­bly seat to Repub­li­can Jon Plum­mer. The open­ing was cre­at­ed when Gov. Scott Walk­er named the district’s sit­ting assem­bly rep­re­sen­ta­tive to a state gov­ern­ment posi­tion. Ini­tial­ly, Walk­er refused to call a spe­cial elec­tion, but relent­ed after a court rul­ing said the vot­ers in the dis­trict had a right to be rep­re­sent­ed; that they did not have to wait until the gen­er­al elec­tion in Novem­ber. So Plum­mer is now the incum­bent in the Nov. 6 elec­tion and Groves Lloyd is the chal­lenger.

View her Face­book Page.

Vis­it her web­site

View her Twit­ter feed.

 

 

As expected, Republicans in Green Lake County outpoll Democrats during partisan primary

Make of it what you will ….

As expect­ed in Green Lake Coun­ty, tra­di­tion­al­ly a Repub­li­can strong­hold, GOP can­di­dates for major statewide office out­polled Democ­rats by deci­sive mar­gins.

For exam­ple, Incum­bent Gov­er­nor Scott Walk­er, who had only token oppo­si­tion in the par­ti­san pri­ma­ry, racked up 1,618 votes in the coun­ty. His run­ning mate, incum­bent Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Rebec­ca Kleefisch, pulled in 1,619 (guess she is more pop­u­lar than the gov­er­nor).

On the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side of the ledger, eight can­di­dates split the votes cast. As expect­ed, Tony Evers, the cur­rent Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion, gar­nered the most sup­port with 462 votes. Kel­da Roys was next with 91 and in a bit of a sur­prise, Paul Soglin was third with 87. Statewide, Evers was first with 224,644, fol­lowed by Mitchell’s 88,077 and Roys’ 68,952.

The bat­tle in Green Lake Coun­ty­for the lieu­tenant gov­er­nor on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side was clos­er with Man­dela Barnes beat­ing Kurt Kober, 503 to 346.

In the bat­tle for the Sen­ate seat now held by Tam­my Bald­win, there was a hot­ly con­test­ed bat­tle on the Repub­li­can side with Leah Vuk­mir out­polling Kevin Nichol­son, 830 to 779. Bald­win, who was unop­posed on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty side, pulled in 887 votes.The Green Lake Coun­ty Repub­li­cans, how­ev­er, turned out a total of 1,609 vot­ers, drawarf­ing the total (887) of the Democ­rats.

Repub­li­can strength was also evi­dent as incum­bent Con­gress­man Glenn Groth­man (6th Dis­trict) came home with 1,617 votes. Demo­c­rat Dan Kohl, like Groth­man run­ning unop­posed with­in the par­ty, racked up 805 votes.

In anoth­er statewide race, for attor­ney gen­er­al, Repub­li­can Brad Schmiel earned 1,599 votes in the coun­ty, while Josh Kaul, the Demo­c­rat, came in with 805 votes.

Vot­ers, who had to choose which par­ty they sup­port­ed before vot­ing, also gave an ear­ly indi­ca­tion of their con­tin­ued sup­port for incum­bent Joan Ball­weg in the 41st Assem­bly Dis­trict. Ball­weg, who has been elect­ed to the seat sev­en times, had 1,417 votes in Green Lake Coun­ty.

Demo­c­rat Frank Buress, who was unop­posed, like Ball­weg, was able to muster 756 votes in Green Lake Coun­ty. The dis­trict, how­ev­er, includes parts of sev­en addi­tion­al coun­ties so the Green Lake total is only part of the whole.

So, what does all this mean? Statewide there were more Democ­rats vot­ing for their can­di­dates on Aug. 14 than there were Repub­li­cans. This has to be a con­cern for the GOP. But for tthem, Green Lake Coun­ty appears to be pro­tect­ed ter­ri­to­ry.

 

The next time you encounter a political candidate, like Joan Ballweg, ask them one or more of these questions

If you are not sure what to ask a polit­i­cal can­di­date the next time you run into one, con­sid­er ask­ing one or more of these ques­tions. We can’t take cred­it for the ques­tions, how­ev­er. The ques­tions came from Matt Roth­schild, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Democ­ra­cy Cam­paign.

If you do get a chance to ask a ques­tion of some­one like Joan Ball­weg, pic­tured above at Ripon Col­lege ear­li­er this year, either in writ­ing or in per­son, please record or jot down the answer and share it with us. We’d love to know where Ball­weg, who rep­re­sents the 41st Assem­bly Dis­trict, stands on these issues. 

View Ballweg’s email address and her phone num­ber.

1. Are you for ban­ning ger­ry­man­der­ing in Wis­con­sin? In oth­er words, do you back the Iowa mod­el of inde­pen­dent, non­par­ti­san, and trans­par­ent map draw­ing by career civ­il ser­vants – not the par­ty in pow­er?

2. Are you in favor of rewrit­ing our cam­paign finance law to ban cor­po­ra­tions, unions, and oth­er groups from giv­ing direct­ly to polit­i­cal par­ties and leg­isla­tive cam­paign com­mit­tees?

3. Are you in favor of requir­ing those bogus “issue-advo­ca­cy” groups to dis­close who is giv­ing them mon­ey so that we can find out who is pay­ing for all the mud they’re throw­ing at our screens in an elec­tion sea­son?

4. Are you in favor of ban­ning coor­di­na­tion between can­di­dates and these bogus “issue-advo­ca­cy” groups?

5. Are you in favor of impos­ing a low ceil­ing on how much an indi­vid­ual can give to polit­i­cal par­ties? Right now in Wis­con­sin, the sky is the lim­it.

6. Are you in favor of impos­ing a low ceil­ing on how much an indi­vid­ual can give to a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date? Right now, if you’re super rich, you may give $20,000 to each can­di­date for every statewide office: gov­er­nor, lieu­tenant gov­er­nor, attor­ney gen­er­al, sec­re­tary of state, and state supreme court jus­tice.

7. Are you in favor of requir­ing donors to can­di­dates to dis­close the names of their employ­ers, as cam­paigns were required to report for decades pri­or to the 2015 cam­paign finance law over­haul?

8. Are you in favor of pub­lic financ­ing of elec­tions?

9. Are you in favor of tight recusal rules for judges and jus­tices when one of the par­ties to a case also hap­pens to be, or rep­re­sents, one of their big donors?

10. Are you in favor of amend­ing the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion to pro­claim, once and for all, that cor­po­ra­tions aren’t per­sons and mon­ey isn’t speech?

 

Kelda Roys endorses Tony Evers in race for the governor, pledges to help elect Sen. Baldwin and other Dems this November

Kel­da Roys, who fin­ished third in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty par­ti­san pri­ma­ry for the governor’s office on Tues­day, issued a state­ment today endors­ing Evers and thank­ing all the Dems (68,965) who vot­ed for her. Her state­ment fol­lows:

“Thank you for sup­port­ing our vision of a bet­ter Wis­con­sin. Thank you for every phone call, every dol­lar, every knock, every hour, every tweet, every lov­ing note, every time you said yes, and then yes again. To have come this far is tru­ly an hon­or.

Your gen­eros­i­ty and faith in me is a pro­found gift that I will cher­ish for the rest of my life.

I’m so proud of what we were able to accom­plish togeth­er. We expand­ed the idea of what a gov­er­nor looks like. Like Kath­leen Falk showed me in 2001, and Mary Burke showed us in 2014, our chil­dren, girls and boys alike, have seen a woman run a strong cam­paign for gov­er­nor. We showed that a par­ent of young kids can run for statewide office — we can be lov­ing par­ents and com­pe­tent pro­fes­sion­als. We showed the world that breast­feed­ing moms are lead­ers who get things done.Most impor­tant­ly, we built our cam­paign on mak­ing Wis­con­sin a place of oppor­tu­ni­ty and fair­ness again. Wis­con­sin will be a leader in health­care, pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, with Tony Evers as our next gov­er­nor.

I would like to con­grat­u­late Dr. Tony Evers on his vic­to­ry tonight and I’m delight­ed to offer him my com­plete and enthu­si­as­tic sup­port. Tony and I share the same goals — to build a Wis­con­sin wor­thy of the peo­ple who call it home. Tony will fight for our schools, expand our access to health­care, raise wages, and pro­tect our envi­ron­ment. Tony Evers must be our next gov­er­nor. 

I intend to spend the next 3 months work­ing as hard as I can to help Tony win, to help Tam­my Bald­win remain our cham­pi­on in the Sen­ate, and to elect many Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates to Con­gress and our state leg­is­la­ture. I urge every­one who sup­port­ed me to com­mit now to work­ing even hard­er than we have been to win in Novem­ber.

Thank you for every­thing,

Kel­da”

Barnes easily tops Kober to earn right to challenge Kleefisch in the lieutenant governor’s race in November

Man­dela Barnes, who was a fre­quent vis­i­tor to Green Lake Co. Dems & Friends events this past year, won the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s node for lieu­tenant gov­er­nor Tues­day in the par­ti­san pri­ma­ry elec­tion. Barnes topped Kurt Kober, also anoth­er fre­quent vis­i­tor to our events. Both were at last week’s Green Lake Coun­ty Fair in Green Lake.

Barnes received 326,051 or 68% of the votes in the par­ti­san pri­ma­ry. Kober, from She­boy­gan, received 153,698 or 32% of the votes cast by Democ­rats. He is pic­tured right in a pho­to tak­en ear­li­er this year when he attend­ed a 4-Co Can­di­dates Forum in Wau­toma, cp-host­ed by the Green Lake Co. Dems & Friends. 

A for­mer state leg­is­la­tor, Barnes had to sur­vive what in a close might have doomed his chances: three of the states news­pa­pers did not include him as a can­di­date in pub­lished lists. Read arti­cle.

 

Mandela Barnes Vote Total

Kurt Kober Vote Total

OPINION: If elected, Evers could be key check on future Republican redistricting efforts

By Mal­colm McIn­tyre

Look­ing for anoth­er rea­son to sup­port Tony Evers in his bat­tle to unseat incum­bent Repub­li­can Gov. Scott Walk­er. Con­sid­er this: The win­ner of the Nov. 6 gen­er­al elec­tion has veto pow­er over the redis­trict­ing that will take place in 2020. This means that if Evers wins he will serve as a check on the Repub­li­can legislature’s attempts to either keep the already gross­ly ger­ry­man­dered Con­gres­sion­al, state sen­ate and state assem­bly dis­tricts in the state or even worse, any attempts to make them even more Repub­li­can-friend­ly (is that pos­si­ble?).

Here is what Bal­lot­pe­dia wrote in a recent post: “The win­ner of the gen­er­al elec­tion will be involved in the state’s redis­trict­ing process fol­low­ing the 2020 cen­sus. Under Wis­con­sin state law, the state leg­is­la­ture is respon­si­ble for draw­ing new maps for U.S. House and state leg­isla­tive seats fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the cen­sus. The gov­er­nor has the pow­er to veto these dis­trict map pro­pos­als. Click here for more infor­ma­tion on redis­trict­ing pro­ce­dures.