Wisconsin

Wisconsin business leaders have a message for fellow employers. Encourage your workers to vote

Published

2 years ago

April 19, 2024

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Wisconsin business leaders have a message for fellow employers. Encourage your workers to vote

A group of Wisconsin business leaders is pushing for more employers to encourage voting and other civic engagement.

The nonpartisan civic engagement group, the Wisconsin Business Leaders For Democracy, advocated for Wisconsin businesses to allow for voting during work time, facilitate voter registration and encourage poll working.

Among the speakers at a roundtable discussion Friday were Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Milwaukee Election Commissioner Claire Woodall, business leaders including Greg Marcus, CEO of The Marcus Corp.; Tom Florsheim, CEO of Weyco Group; and Paul Miller, cofounder of Colectivo Coffee.

“I know how critically important it is to have people across our city to be engaged in our electoral process,” Johnson said at the event. “Everybody in this community should raise their voice to vote … none of this works unless we have an engaged democracy.”

Here are the main takeaways from the event.

Poll workers needed in Milwaukee’s elections

Woodall said the biggest need for local elections is workers at the polls, particularly in early afternoon shifts.

She said the Milwaukee elections take about 2,300 poll workers and the city battles issues with workers not showing up for shifts.

“We’re still seeing large numbers of people who, life happens, maybe they aren’t feeling well,” Woodall said. “They wake up and they decide not to come to work. So then we’re left scrambling.”

Many of the attendees said they encourage workers to become poll workers and Woodall said the city has a permanent position dedicated to training poll workers at off-site locations, like businesses with groups of interested employees.

Among those encouraging workers was Colectivo’s Miller, who employs about 500 workers in Wisconsin. Woodall referenced that one of the company’s cafés had its entire staff work at the polls and Miller said that they encourage poll workers by paying the difference between poll worker pay and their typical daily pay.

Combatting misinformation key to public safety, mayor says

David Irwin, president and CEO of gThankYou, a provider of gift certificates for food items, raised the topic of distrust in elections during the event. He noted the need for the business community to combat misinformation to maintain trust in elections.

Irwin, who said he typically supports “right of center” politicians, said he viewed some of the misinformation coming from his political community.

“A lot of the people who have been kind of part of my political community for the last couple of decades, I view, as having been on kind of the wrong side of spreading disinformation and sowing undue lack of confidence in our elections,” he said. “We need to really, as leaders of business or anything, we need to fight misinformation and we need to encourage anyone … to seek out the truth.”

The topic was raised again when Irwin was in discussion with Johnson, when he asked the mayor his thoughts on public safety around elections.

Johnson stressed the need for the public to understand and trust the electoral process as one that is fair and safe.

“Folks have to first understand that and know that,” he said. “We want people engaged in our electoral process.”

What local businesses are doing to encourage civic engagement

Almost all of the business leaders emphasized the work they’ve done to facilitate voter engagement in their workforce.

Tom Florsheim, of the shoe company Weyco Group, said his company has given paid time off to vote; offered on-site voter registration; and paid time off for working at the polls.

Others like Lori Richards, president and CEO of Mueller Communications, said her company gives 24 hours of paid time off for activities like poll working.

“We believe that companies are in a unique position, because the large number of people we employ, to really have an impact on civic engagement in Milwaukee,” Florsheim said.

Marcus stressed the need for further civic engagement and took note of primary elections decided by smaller groups of voters who may advance candidates who don’t represent larger community interests.

“Our system is not delivering the results that we want,” he said. “If we delivered this as companies, our customers would be screaming at us.”

How Milwaukee, Wisconsin businesses can do more. There’s a toolkit

The Wisconsin Business Leaders For Democracy promoted a civic engagement toolkit the group designed. That toolkit had been incorporated by almost all of the attendees of the roundtable event and was positioned as a strong step forward for other businesses looking to build on it.

The toolkit, while not updated yet for the upcoming November election, provides a suggested timeline for how businesses should share information on elections. For example, the April election iteration had communication plans for five weeks before, two weeks before, one week before and the morning of the election. Those plans were centered around either making a plan to vote early or on election day.

Additionally, the plan offered links to information on working the polls and email templates for a company’s human resources departments to send to employees.

The toolkit can be downloaded from the group’s website and Florsheim said it will be updated for the November election soon.

How to register to vote in Wisconsin (you’ll need a have a photo ID)

Here’s how to register and vote in Wisconsin.

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Wisconsin

Insider: Wisconsin Man Charged With Possession Of Virtual Child Pornography

Published

1 hour ago

December 16, 2025

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Insider: Wisconsin Man Charged With Possession Of Virtual Child Pornography

POLK COUNTY (DrydenWire) – An investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, into multiple cybertips from Google about suspected child sexual abuse materials has resulted in felony charges for a Wisconsin Man.

Cody Struemke, age 27, of Amery, WI, is facing nearly a dozen charges for possessing child pornography, including Felony Possession of Virtual Child Pornography.

The criminal complaint against him alleges that Struemke saved a photo from Facebook of juveniles known to him, and digitally edited the photo to make it appear they were nude.

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin health professionals share tips to protect against respiratory illnesses

Published

13 hours ago

December 15, 2025

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Wisconsin health professionals share tips to protect against respiratory illnesses

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) -Respiratory illness season has begun in Wisconsin, with health professionals reporting increased flu cases and higher demand for medications and vaccines.

Over-the-counter medicines are flying off the shelves at Forward Pharmacy in McFarland, according to manager Tony Peterangelo.

“We’ve had to increase like how much of some of that stuff we’ve kept on hand,” Peterangelo said. “We had to make some special orders to really bulk up on some of it too.”

Forward Pharmacy manager Tony Peterangelo filling prescriptions as the respiratory illness season begins.(WMTV/Camberyn Kelley)

Upland Hills physician Benjamin Hecht said the respiratory illness season typically begins after Thanksgiving.

“As of right now, we are just starting in the last week or two to see some Influenza A. Last year was a pretty tough flu year for us, influenza in Wisconsin. It’s still to be seen how severe of a year this is going to be in 2025-26,” he said.

Respiratory viruses are hard to avoid according to the Upland Hills physician.

“You can wear masks and wash your hands a ton, but you’re going to get exposed to these viruses at some point,” Dr. Hecht said.

RSV poses concern for young children

Dr. Hecht said another concern this season is RSV, particularly for young children with developing immune systems.

“The kids that get this, especially the really young kids, that don’t have a mature immune system, they can get pretty sick from RSV. That’s a particularly scary one. If you’re in a position where you qualify to get that vaccination or perhaps your kids do, please consider that,” Dr. Hecht said.

Forward Pharmacy is meeting demand for vaccines, which Peterangelo said can help protect against viruses.

“All of that stuff reduces the need to scramble on the back end to get antibiotics and cough suppressants. It doesn’t completely reduce your risk, but it reduces it enough that your likelihood of getting that is down,” Peterangelo said.

The pharmacy has given out dozens of flu and covid shots in a day.

“I would say maybe in the 60 to 80 range,” Peterangelo said.

Dr. Hecht said influenza B will come later in the season. He recommends people with severe respiratory symptoms like breathing troubles to see a doctor.

“The big thing is just living a healthy lifestyle, staying well hydrated, getting good sleep, doing what you can with physical activity and exercise to make sure your immune system is in tip top shape,” Dr. Hecht said.

According to new CDC data, doctor visits for flu-like symptoms rose to more than 3% in the last two weeks. The majority of flu cases are caused by a mutated strain that causes more severe illness, particularly among older adults.

Click here to download the WMTV15 News app or our WMTV15 First Alert weather app.

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Wisconsin

Former Trump aides appear in Wisconsin court over 2020 election fraud charges

Published

1 day ago

December 15, 2025

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Former Trump aides appear in Wisconsin court over 2020 election fraud charges

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two attorneys and an aide who all worked on President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign appeared in court Monday for a preliminary hearing in Wisconsin on felony forgery charges related to a fake elector scheme.

The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive.

The Wisconsin case was filed a year ago but has been tied up as the Trump aides have fought, unsuccessfully so far, to have the charges dismissed.

The hearing on Monday comes a week after Trump attorney Jim Troupis, one of the three who were charged, tried unsuccessfully to get the judge to step down in the case and have it moved to another county. Troupis, who the other two defendants joined in his motion, alleged that the judge did not write a previous order issued in August declining to dismiss the case. Instead, he accused the father of the judge’s law clerk, a retired judge, of actually writing the opinion.

Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he was charged, also alleged that all of the judges in Dane County are biased against him and he can’t get a fair trial.

Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland said he and a staff attorney alone wrote the order. Hyland also said Troupis presented no evidence to back up his claims of bias and refused to step down or delay the hearing.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegations.

The same judge will determine at Monday’s hearing whether there’s enough evidence to proceed with the charges against the three.

The former Trump aides face 11 felony charges each related to their roles in the 2020 fake elector scheme. In addition to Troupis, the other defendants are Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised Trump’s campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, headed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, brought the felony forgery charges in 2024, alleging that the three defrauded the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020.

Prosecutors contend the three lied to the Republicans about how the certificate they signed would be used as part of a plan to submit paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence, falsely claiming that Trump had won the battleground state that year.

The complaint said a majority of the 10 Republicans told investigators that they were needed to sign the elector certificate indicating Trump had won only to preserve his legal options if a court changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.

A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said. Also, a majority said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.

Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.

The Trump associates have argued that no crime took place. But the judge in August rejected their arguments in allowing the case to proceed to Monday’s preliminary hearing.

Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 but fought to have the defeat overturned. He won the state in both 2016 and 2024.

The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them seeking damages.

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This story has been corrected to show that the attorneys who are charged formerly worked on Trump’s campaign, but are still practicing attorneys.

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