I have to call out bullshit on this one. Two Republican members of the state legislature in Madison resigned their seats in December to take positions in the Walker administration. The governor has not called for special elections to fill those vacant seats, because it would be too expensive and a burden on the municipalities involved…and he’s being sued for his troubles. Well this is where the bullshit comes in.
It actually couldn’t have been more convenient for the governor to run these special elections…because just two months after the resignations…we had…voila…the spring primary elections! At the time of the resignations, the ballots hadn’t been set yet because…candidates were still circulating nomination petitions…for you guessed it…the spring elections.
So all the governor needed to do was add the special elections to the spring ballot…give the potential candidates the allotted time to gather signatures…and we are off and running.
Except…well the Democrats are hot right now and even gerrymandering hasn’t worked in 2018…so we’ll just flat out freeze them out.
Thanks Mr. Unintimidated!
another point of view on this: Murphy’s Law : Why Walker Opposes Special Elections
Is that right? Can a partisan special election be consolidated with a nonpartisan spring election? My understanding is that the whole purpose of the spring elections is to keep them separate from partisan races. None of that’s to say that Walker is right on this issue. His interpretation of the special election statute is preposterous and his refusal to hold these special elections is unlawful.
Yes, they can be held at the same time. The only concern would be during the primary, because both “Dem ballots” and “GOP ballots” would have had the Supreme Court race on both, and that can confuse voters. But since that’s only affecting less than 5% of the State, big deal.
General election would be no problem at all, since you only vote for 1 candidate a race.
Of course, statewide races like Supreme Court should be in November anyway, but that’s a different discussion.