Protasiewicz Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race: Live Spring Election Coverage

By Eric Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner

April 4, 2023

At 8:53 p.m. Tuesday night, less than one hour after polls closed, the Associated Press called the Wisconsin Supreme Court race for Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

With 63% of the votes counted at 9:06 p.m., Protasiewicz commanded 55.8% of the vote to 44.2% for Former Justice Dan Kelly.

Protasiewicz’ victory was evident early in the counting. On Twitter, Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report famous for his catch-phrase “I’ve seen enough,” made his call for Protasiewicz at least 10 minutes before the AP.

Clerks report high turnout

By Henry Redman, Wisconsin Examiner

As the weather across southern Wisconsin turned ugly Tuesday afternoon, voters were turning out in droves for an election that could reshape the state’s highest court.

In some of the red counties between the Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee, election officials and poll workers reported they were seeing turnout that was higher than or in line with a normal spring election.

In Fort Atkinson, City Clerk Michelle Ebbert said around 3 p.m. that 42% of the Jefferson County city’s registered voters had already turned out to vote with the evening rush still to come, a mark she said was “typical.” The city’s lone poll location at city hall had 70 voters in line when it opened at 7 a.m. and regularly had lines of 20 to 30 people throughout the day.

Ebbert added that she was happy to see the turnout for the local elections on the ballot on Tuesday.

“We love seeing voters when it’s the city council and school board because that’s the world around you,” she said.

Mirroring polling places in other parts of the state, she said the polling place hadn’t seen any election observers all day.

A few miles east in the town of Koshkonong, where the parking lot at the town hall polling place smells of the dairy farm across the street, clerk Caitlin Kincannon said the day had been smooth.

“No hiccups, it’s been a really great day,” said Kincannon, who was working her first election as clerk but in her seventh year working the polls.

In the small town where fewer than 2,000 votes were cast in November’s midterm elections, Kincannon said there were frequent lines and backups in the booths at the site. Around 4 p.m. she said there had already been 1,100 votes cast.

The town of Delavan in Walworth County was one of several communities across the state that Disability Rights Wisconsin, an advocacy group for people with disabilities, had previously raised concerns for telling voters on the website that they must return their absentee ballot on their own. For most voters, that’s the case, but a federal judge ruled last year that under the Voting Rights Act, voters with disabilities must be given the opportunity to get assistance returning or filling out a ballot.

On Tuesday, Delavan Town Clerk Michele Starin said that she’d updated her information and had accepted several ballots from people who were delivering on behalf of a voter with disabilities. At the polling location just feet from the shore of Delavan Lake, chief inspector Lizz Casey and Starin reported that even though the town got hit with a hard early afternoon storm, turnout was higher than the spring election in 2020, when conservative Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly lost to liberal Jill Karofsky and the Democratic presidential primary was on the ballot.

In 2020 there were 1,400 votes cast in the spring election. By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 1,422 had been cast.

In Waukesha, a crucial community for Kelly, on the ballot again facing off with liberal Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, the chief inspector at the city hall poll location said turnout was up.

“It’s a higher than usual turnout for this kind of election, the inspector, Harry Krueger, said. “It was expected; we had higher than usual in February.”

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