Wisconsin
Assembly sends voter ID constitutional amendment question to Wisconsin voters
How to register to vote in Wisconsin (you’ll need a have a photo ID)
Here’s how to register and vote in Wisconsin.
MADISON – Wisconsin voters in April will decide whether to amend the state constitution to include the state law requiring voters to show photo identification while casting ballots — a move Republicans are hoping will protect the law from being overturned by a liberal-controlled state Supreme Court.
Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday approved a resolution 54-45 to ask voters in the April 1 election to approve the photo ID amendment. The vote was the last hurdle in a two-year process to amend the state constitution and will put the question to voters in the same election they will decide partisan control of the state’s highest court.
State laws already require voters to show photo identification, but the measure now moves the question to voters in a statewide referendum on the spring election ballot. If passed, the rule will be included in the Wisconsin Constitution.
Adding the voter ID requirement to the constitution would make it more difficult for the state Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. It also would be harder for Democrats to repeal the law if they gain control of the Legislature in future years.
The implementation of the state law that requires voters to show photo identification increased ballot security, Republican authors argue, but the side effects have disproportionately hit Black voters in Milwaukee who are more likely not to have a photo ID and less inclined to seek one than their white peers, experts and advocates say.
Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The remaining 14 states and Washington, D.C., use other methods to verify the identity of voters.
A national poll conducted by Pew Research Centers in January 2024 showed broad support — 81% — for the idea of requiring voters to show government-issued IDs to vote.
To obtain a state ID card, voters must complete an application at a DMV customer service center, where they are required to provide proof of name and birth (through a birth certificate, passport or certificate of naturalization), Wisconsin residency, U.S. citizenship and their Social Security number.
Advocates have said the difficulty in obtaining a birth certificate can be among the bigger hurdles for some in acquiring an ID.
Since the state’s voter ID law survived legal challenges and went into effect for the 2016 presidential election cycle, a host of advocacy groups have emerged to study and help voters navigate the law.
Their findings show a drop in accessibility that began in 2012, when Republicans took control of state government, and accelerated after the voter ID law became practice.
If approved by Wisconsin voters, the amendment would still let lawmakers decide what types of photo ID are acceptable and create exceptions. Voters who don’t have a photo ID when they go to the polls could still cast a provisional ballot, which is counted after they return to their clerk with their ID.If voters reject the amendment, the state will still require photo ID to vote under existing laws.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more
MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee has no shortage of ways to celebrate this weekend, from a Pride bar crawl to Father’s Day deals around the city and Juneteenth celebrations.
Summerfest and Northcott Neighborhood House are hosting a Juneteenth celebration filled with music and culture at the Summerfest grounds.
Watch: Kidd O’Shea breaks down this weekend’s events:
Wisconsin Weekend in a Minute: June 19-21
The event kicks off right after the traditional Juneteenth Day Festival wraps up.
Pride Bar Crawl
The 9th annual Pride Bar Crawl kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. at Walker’s Pint.
Tickets include drinks and access to exclusive specials at partner bars. Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.
The crawl wraps up with an after-party and drag show at La Cage Nightclub.
Father’s Day
On Sunday, The Motor Restaurant at the Harley-Davidson Museum is offering a free beer for dad when purchased with a meal, along with free admission to the museum. Reservations are highly encouraged.
Families can also take dad to the Milwaukee County Zoo, where all fathers receive free admission on Sunday.
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Wisconsin
These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it
Vessels are anchored along the Strait of Hormuz.
Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images
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Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images
The war in Iran was a costly blunder, according to swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024.
President Trump had just announced a framework agreement to end the war, which he signed on Wednesday.
Yet among the focus groups’ 13 participants, no one said they thought the conflict with Iran was “worth it,” and nine said they felt that the U.S. is coming out of this conflict weaker than before.
Corey M., a 33-year-old independent voter, said he is concerned that the U.S. expended “so much financially and so much of our arsenal,” with little to show for it. (All participants agreed to be part of the focus groups on the condition that they be identified by their first name and last initial only.)
“We essentially got nothing out of it,” he said. “It’s hurt our economy and increased expenses for the everyday American, and it accomplished the square root of nothing.”
Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polling. But they provide insight into how Americans are thinking about what they see in the news.

These focus groups — made up of 10 self-described independents, two Democrats and one Republican — were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project. NPR is a partner on the project.
Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderated the focus groups. He has been asking voters in key states about this conflict since March. And he said voters have been consistent.
“They were never on board,” Thau said. “Not the beginning. Not in the middle. And as we just learned, not at the end either, judging from what we heard from Wisconsin swing voters.”
Sam M., a 30-year-old independent, said from what he read about the deal, it wasn’t leaving the U.S. in a better position than before the war. In fact, he said he thought the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration — which Trump backed out of — was a better deal for the United States.
Anger over high gas prices
For most voters, though, their biggest concern has remained the high gas prices that are a consequence of the war.
Tammy S., a 53-year-old independent voter, said Americans have been unfairly caught in the middle.
“I just don’t think the way that everybody else had to suffer through the tantrums of these two playing tug-of-war — I just don’t think that it was fair to the American people,” she said. “I don’t think that anybody was a real winner here.”

Several voters said they’ve felt squeezed by costs and as a result have given up something that had been a regular part of their life. They’ve cut vacations and eating out or are getting their hair done less often.
“I’ve given up all my extracurricular hobbies … paddleboarding, yoga,” said Jaylyn M., a 27-year-old who identifies as a Republican. “And then a lot of my subscriptions I’ve cut out, along with my daily coffee, which is minor, but all things that I’ve had to give up to make ends meet.”
“I had to raise all my deductibles on everything — my car insurance, my health insurance — to lower my premiums, so that I can continue to make it,” added Robyn T., a 63-year-old independent.
Trump owns the economic problems
The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, out Thursday, finds that only a third of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy.
In the focus groups, nine of the 13 voters said they are more anxious about the economy than they were before Trump took office last year. And all but one voter said that “President Trump himself is responsible for those higher prices” because of the war.
“And 10 said he’s out of touch with their economic concerns,” Thau told NPR. “So for them, there’s a clear disconnect between how the president’s operating on the economy and what their needs are.”
And heading into what could be some tough midterm elections for Republicans, voters are really frustrated that Trump isn’t delivering a better economy by now.
“It seems to me, like, pick your issue, and things are not going well for him,” said Josh K., a 29-year-old independent voter. “I mean, we got this stupid war in Iran, and it turns out that we actually aren’t getting anything out of it. I mean, all we got was $4 gas. I mean, pick your issue — the economy, things are more expensive.”
Wisconsin
President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody
A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.
The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.
“Salah Sarsour, who has lived in this country for more than three decades and served as a core pillar in his community without any issues, should never have been detained in the first place,” his legal team wrote in a statement. “While we continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited. It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”
Sarsour describes himself as a stateless Palestinian, according to the order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that he is a Jordanian citizen. He has lived in the United States for more than three decades, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1998. Immigration officials approved Sarsour’s citizenship application decades ago, though he did not naturalize.
Sarsour has garnered public attention as a champion for Palestinian rights, and serves as a board member of an advocacy group called American Muslims for Palestine.
But Rubio personally signed off on a memo to the DHS last year describing Sarsour as deportable despite his green card, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. The memo, cited in Hanlon’s order, accuses Sarsour’s group of being “found to have been involved in activities providing funds to Hamas”.
A group of plainclothes ICE officers from at least 10 unmarked vehicles swarmed Sarsour on 30 March of this year, arresting him and putting him in deportation proceedings. ICE ultimately detained him in Clay county jail in Indiana.
Sarsour lost 30lb while detained, the order says. His lawyers told the court that he was “at constant risk of developing serious complications from diabetes given that the medical staff only checks his blood-sugar levels once a month”. Tightly controlling diabetes typically requires multiple glucose checks daily.
Hanlon’s order says that homeland security officials and Rubio probably trampled on Sarsour’s first amendment right to free speech and appeared to have arrested him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy.
The order cited a New York Times story and the website for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative thinktank that dreamed up Project 2025,
The Heritage Foundation presented the White House with the idea to present prominent foreign-born Muslims and Palestinian rights leaders as terrorists in order to sue them, deport them or pressure employers to fire them, the order says, citing reporting from the Times and Heritage’s own website. Sarsour was probably among the targets of that campaign, the order says.
The federal government, through its lawyers, contended that Sarsour should be deported based on two convictions from more than three decades ago in Israel – one for throwing a molotov cocktail and the other for attempting to store weapons and ammunition.
Sarsour denies having committed those crimes.
But Hanlon viewed those crimes as a non-issue for justifying his incarceration, noting that the federal government knew about them since the 1990s and approved his legal permanent residency and his citizenship application anyway.
Sarsour’s speech on Palestinian rights “is core political speech and squarely within the scope of the First Amendment”, the order says. “Mr Sarsour has submitted evidence allowing a reasonable inference that his protected speech was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in Respondents’ decision to detain him.”
A spokesperson for homeland security described Sarsour as a “terrorist”, citing the convictions from his youth in Israel.
Government lawyers had argued that Sarsour did not have the same first amendment rights as US citizens. If he were released, they said, he should have to pay a $25,000 bond, wear an ankle monitor, check in routinely with ICE and remain confined to his house.
Instead, Hanlon ordered his release on personal recognizance, meaning that Sarsour does not have to pay a cash bond to compel him to show up in court again. The order, however, requires him to remain in the state of Wisconsin.
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