(The MATC Times is not endorsing any candidate in the April 1 election and we encourage all students, faculty and staff to research the candidates and their positions to make informed decisions.)
If you attended MATC last semester, you might remember that there was an early voting location on the Downtown campus. Well, just over five months later and there will be another election, and MATC is going to once again host an early voting site March 18-March 29. If you live in the city of Milwaukee, you can vote early right here on campus! If you voted here in November and have not moved, you will not even have to register.
The April 1st election will be for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as well as various municipal elections that are dependent upon where you live. These sorts of elections are much smaller events than the presidential, or even governor and senate elections, but are no less important.
If you are someone who feels that their vote doesn’t matter, I would say that in these local elections your vote counts far more than in the presidential races. The Supreme Court race in 2019 was decided by only 6,000 votes, and some of these smaller races like Alderman might be decided by fewer than 100 votes.
No idea what the Wisconsin Supreme Court or Superintendent do? No worries, we’ve got you covered:
Supreme Court: The statewide supreme court is the highest court in the state. Similar to the US Supreme Court, this body serves to provide checks and balances on the legislature and the governor’s office. Unlike the US Supreme Court, the Justices in Wisconsin are elected, so if you don’t like how they have been doing their job you have the chance to vote them out!
While the race is formally nonpartisan, both candidates have received funding from one of the two state political parties. Brad Schimel is thought to be more of a conservative (he served as Scott Walker’s Attorney General) while Susan Crawford has received support from liberal groups (she represented Planned Parenthood as a private attorney back in 2011).
Superintendent: Unlike most other states, Wisconsin elects its head of K-12 public instruction, and this race, like the Supreme Court, is officially non-partisan. However, both candidates stated priorities for education align somewhat with democratic and republican priorities. Jill Underly, the current Superintendent, is thought to be more liberal, and has proposed a $4 billion increase in funding for public schools. Britney Kinser has been embraced by the Republican Party and seeks to expand private school choice programs.
