From Marie L. Baker

Dodgeville

To the Editor:

Many people don’t realize that there’s an election on Tuesday April 1st for Justice of the State Supreme Court. They also don’t realize how critical it is.

Judge Susan Crawford is by far the best candidate. She has been a Circuit Court Judge since 2018 and a prosecutor for nearly a decade. As a private practice attorney, she protected voting and workers’ rights, and defended access to reproductive health care. She also protected nursing home patients from identity theft and kept families safe from sex offenders. She will be important in safeguarding the fundamental rights and freedoms afforded to every Wisconsinite through our Constitution. 

Wisconsin’s democracy is under attack by Elon Musk and other billionaires. They are trying to take over Wisconsin’s Supreme Court and install a hyper-partisan justice: right-wing extremist Brad Schimel. If he wins, it’s very likely that the rigged election gerrymander will again be imposed on the voters of Wisconsin. He has a history of fighting against democracy. As attorney general, he boasted he helped Trump win the 2016 election in Wisconsin by restricting the right to vote. More recently, he has supported pardoning the criminals who violently stormed our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election and destroy our democracy.

Also on the ballot is a constitutional amendment asking if our strict voter ID law should be added to the constitution. I’m voting NO on the amendment because our ID law doesn’t belong in the constitution. Nationally, voter ID laws are common, but it is rare for states to enshrine those requirements in their state constitutions. 

Voter ID requirements can impair the right to vote and undermine the fairness of elections by imposing unnecessary barriers that disproportionately impact people of color, older voters, those with disabilities, low-income communities, rural voters, and others who have more difficulty obtaining an ID. even where photo ID is not required, verifiable incidents of voter fraud are extremely low.

With such high stakes in the April 1st election, get out and vote. Don’t be an April fool by staying home.