Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will see mostly sunny skies and a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset is 8:37 for 15 hours 18 minutes of daylight. The moon will be full this evening.
On this day in 1764, one of the strongest tornadoes in history strikes Woldegk, Germany, killing one person while leveling numerous mansions with winds estimated at greater than 300 miles per hour.
In the federal appellate system, Wisconsin is one of three states (along with Illinois and Indiana) that are part of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. (Collectively, these three states contain seven federal trial court districts.) The Trump administration is eager — desperate, truly — to examine states’ voter rolls in a baseless attempt to allege voter fraud or otherwise meddle in the constitutional role of states to manage their own elections. The administration has lost every lawsuit it has filed for that purpose. Recently, the Seventh Circuit rejected a Trump administration request to expedite an appeal to examine Wisconsin’s voter rolls:
President Donald Trump’s administration had another setback this week in its attempt to get unredacted voter registration data from Wisconsin.
After losing in federal district court last month, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite its lawsuit in order to audit Wisconsin’s voter registration list ahead of the August primary and November general election — demanding sensitive voter data like drivers license information and partial Social Security numbers.The DOJ’s emergency motion suggested “many” absentee ballots could be sent to “non-citizens” or otherwise “fraudulent” registrants without a federal audit.
The appeals court denied the request on Wednesday.
The DOJ has filed 30 other voter roll lawsuits against states and the District of Columbia, according to an analysis by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. Of those, nine have been dismissed by federal district court judges.
Trump has repeatedly made false claims about widespread election fraud with absentee voting by mail. The attempt to force states like Wisconsin to produce unredacted voter data coincides with a proposed U.S. Postal Service rule that wouldn’t allow ballots to be mailed unless the voter sending it is on a federally approved list. The rule proposal was blocked by a federal judge on Thursday.
See Rich Kremer, Trump administration request for speedy resolution of voter roll lawsuit rejected by 7th Circuit (US Department of Justice claims auditing sensitive voter registration data will safeguard upcoming elections. Wisconsin Elections Commission calls that notion ‘absurd’), Wisconsin Public Radio, June 26, 2026.
There are many months, perhaps years, ahead before these cases across the country are decided.
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Shift observed on Trinidad shoreline after Venezuela earthquakes: