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I'm happy you're sharing time with me this.
I would say actually, it's not a bad morning weather wise.
Dom, Dom Lee is in Madison right now on the ones and twos.
Good morning, Dominic.
How are you this morning?
we are moving closer and closer and closer to springtime.
I don't know when exactly.
I mean, I know when springtime begins, but February is the X factor.
You know, we think, okay, we're moving towards March and March feels like hope, but then you're like, oh, the last week of February will be negative 48 degrees and your car will explode because it's so cold.
And it's all because you thought to yourself one day early February, it's kind of warm outside.
That's what did it all.
I'm giving you no hope when it comes to the weather.
All I'm going to say is the civic media mid morning weather balloon is up in the air.
We bought that with the civic media credit card.
Sorry, bosses above.
Sorry about that.
It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive either.
It was a value.
It's up in the air right now.
And we are in radio park and we're seeing is 27 degrees with a high of 36.
I'm looking at, I'm looking at temperatures here all in the upper mid to upper thirties.
Those are the highs.
Those are the highs.
There's a mean that we're going to get.
All right.
I'm just, I'm, I'm providing information to allow you to tamp, tamp down your expectations, live in the now, live in reality.
But we're we're walking slowly towards that.
How was your weekend my friend?
look at that look at that guy right there That guy guys as the kids say stun.
Yeah, very good.
Very good.
Awesome.
Excellent.
That's great.
Glad to hear that.
Glad you're with us.
Glad you're all with us.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842, 855-755 Civic, you can leave a comment on the live stream.
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We have a great show for you today.
Samuel Liebert is the Wisconsin State Director of All Voting is local.
He will be here today to talk about the SAVE Act.
to talk about the mega act.
The mega act is the make of elections great again bill that was introduced by Wisconsin congressman Brian style by the by no you know not related to the not related to the story of Brian style is also up for reelection this year.
There is a primary primary right now there are a lot of folks involved in that primary and he is running to keep the job.
We are going to talk about the mega act which in my opinion and the opinion of many people and I don't
believe Sam is going to disagree with me.
Samuel, I don't know him that well, so I call him Samuel.
That this bill, like the SAVE Act, seeks to restrict voting, suppress voting, intimidate voting, all those things because it looks to get rid of certain aspects.
But we're going to talk more about that with him.
He will give a great overview of what's happening on this and what we can do both to
Let our legislators know that we don't agree with this if you don't agree with this.
We could also talk about if it does pass what we can do to keep ourselves prepared because you can still vote.
But it just might be harder whether it's to register to vote on the day.
We've talked about the SAVE Act and that can greatly affect women who are married who don't have proper identification or paperwork.
So we'll talk more with Sam about that after the 930 News.
And after the 10 o'clock news in the second hour to kick it off, Dr. Kristen Lierly, host of the Dr. Kristen Lierly show, is here with us today.
And we are going to be talking about a fantastic article that is in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about what happens when states take the Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid coverage, which is something Wisconsin, since it's been offered back, you know,
15 years ago, we have never taken.
Wisconsin has never participated in the expanded Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about an article that says point blank, what happens when you do accept that coverage?
What happens when you do allow folks to access health care?
And this is something specifically, not specifically, I shouldn't say specifically for women, but this is something which affects a great deal of women around the world.
So we'll talk with her more about that.
Then we're going to get her take on bad bunny, the halftime show.
Did you watch it?
Did you watch the Super Bowl, the bowl of super, the superior bowl?
I don't know what you want to call it, but the footballs were played.
The Seahawks of Seattle took on.
the Patriots of New English.
By the way, Dom, the Patriots of New England, um, here's something that you want to know something really funny.
This is how little I know about
even though I don't dislike football, I, you know, if you ask me to cheer for a team, I'm always going to choose, cheer, cheer and choose the Packers.
Let's not get, let's not get our, our, our, our undies in the uproar here, but
My whole life.
It was always the New England Patriots.
I never knew where they actually played until one day I took a trip.
Leave me alone down.
Okay.
Seriously.
I don't, I don't need that.
Look, just because you took your girlfriend out on a pre-valentized
day
dinner and you're feeling yourself right now, doesn't mean that I knew everything about football.
They were always the New England Patriots.
I always knew that they were horrible cause Tom Brady is evil because he always kept people from winning their dreams, but I didn't know.
It wasn't even that like someone told me one day cause I let it slip.
I never even thought about it.
And then one day I took a trip to Boston and I set out loud to a guy go, there are a lot of Patriot fans here, man.
You guys like are always where it's like, is it close?
He goes, yeah, they play here.
I'm like, yeah.
New England.
Oh no, in this city.
I'm like,
probably-
my own oil.
tried to find ways to become more of a man.
I'm like, I can change my own oil.
It's cool.
That's not true, actually.
Back in the day, I couldn't.
I can do it now, but I couldn't then.
But yeah, I was like, yeah, totally, man.
I was just kidding, man.
Of course.
The Patriots of New England.
I mean, yeah, it's fine.
It's fine.
It's good.
But yeah, we'll talk more about-
the Super Bowl, the Olympics are happening right now.
You know, we're very early in the Olympics and the metal count is, you know, it's, it's, it's admirable right now.
There's a lot of metals that are being handed out.
I almost said Wisconsin.
United States is, is showing well at this point, but you know, we're not number one.
I mean, we'll hopefully get there, but you never know.
It's, it's, it's about the friends you make along the way.
But again, if you want to be part of the conversation, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five civic.
is the number you can also reach us on the civic media app if you don't have the app go ahead and download that right now to your device whether it's your phone or your tablet what's great about the app folks is that you can go in and you can listen to us live you can take us anywhere in the world you can i mean we've gotten messages from folks listening in other countries other parts of the world it's absolutely fantastic
And then you could listen whether it's music or or the talk side but also you can text us you can call us you can also leave a voice message Which I always tell people you don't have to even like me to leave a voice message And I know that because I have some voice messages messages from folks who do not like me.
So Hey, you disagree with me.
That's fine be Magnanimous be quasi respectful don't have to say anything about my weight but
You can do all that by listening to the Civic Media app, and you can download it right now.
And we're always looking to upgrade it.
We're always looking to do more with it.
You can also get news.
You can customize it to where you're at in the world, really just about making sure that you stay in touch with what we're doing here, whether you're listening to the talk side, which we have going all day long, or you have the ability to listen to our music stations, which we have so many music stations, so much variety.
all right there in the civic media app.
Alicia on the live stream, making me feel better about myself says, I think there are plenty of people who don't know the Patriots playing ball.
Thank you, Alicia.
You taking note there, Dominic?
Listen, I wait to find, I can't wait to find something about you, sir.
Good man.
I'm
myself.
Hmm.
It's kind of like the Patriots in Boston.
you know where the Boston Red Sox play?
Okay, well, you fool!
Uh, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna have a great show for you today.
I wanted to talk about something really, I feel like, I feel like I started to show up with a lot of laughs.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to do this.
I just wanted to pass along some information.
I think this is good because I think this is a, this is a showing of what we are seeing from the communities at large, whether we're talking, you know, Baldwin or Hudson, which is just across the St.
Croix.
right by Minneapolis, Minnesota.
We're talking about Minneapolis, big city, talking about Milwaukee, bigger city.
And we're talking about people marching in the streets and speaking their minds on what's going on with regard to ice occupying the streets of various cities.
And they're in Wisconsin.
Don't make no, make no mistake.
It's not what's happening in Minneapolis, but they are here.
And in the Wisconsin public radio with Evan Casey getting the byline, this headline reads, Milwaukee County passes ordinance to attempt to limit
ice from staging in county parks.
I feel like every step is a good step forward.
Everything if our if our leaders, whether it's the county board, city council, town hall, things of that nature are coming together to do things in order to protect us from these sorts of what you want to call occupation, invasion, whatever actions being taken.
I think these are good.
It's
This ordinance seeks to prohibit immigration and customs enforcement agents, aka ICE, from staging in county parks without prior authorization.
My question and my hope is that the county does not give them authorization.
I don't think they should be allowed to use county parks.
I don't think it's a good idea, but it's all about building a relationship with them if they are here.
And I use that phrase with a lot of
because I do not see Milwaukee County saying get out.
I see them having to feel like they have to work with them.
And if the county is allowed to have some say and keep them out of the county parks, I don't know.
I guess for me is like, I don't want to see pure chaos and I want to see our leaders being able to lead.
But unfortunately what we're seeing happening in Minnesota and Minneapolis and whatnot, it might not be the case.
But I think this
this is a step to say, hey, we're taking control of our community.
We're taking control of our part.
You can't use our parks.
We have kids playing there.
We have people be people there.
But they voted 15 to three on Thursday to do that.
And we'll see where that goes from there.
Also in the Wisconsin Public Radio, Rachelle Wilson says.
here where the headline Wisconsin tribes respond to ICE Presidents in Minnesota because tribal folks have been getting arrested, stopped or detained by federal agents during the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
We have indigenous folks, native folks, first, however they refer to themselves, however they want to be referred to, they are being picked up, they are being detained, and then they are being released.
But these, this is what's happening right now.
And
When we speak to Sam later in the show in a little bit This all goes back to the notion of when you want to speak up you need to do it two ways by calling your leaders And you do that by going to my vote dot wi.gov you can also do that by Voting and we have the chance to vote our leaders in or out.
Do they keep the job?
Or do they lose their jobs this year?
We still have that power
It's important to keep that in mind.
I'm going to talk more about that on the other side.
We got a primary coming up next week for certain parts of Wisconsin.
If you want to know more about that, you're going to stick around here on civic media mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
We are coming to you live from radio park here and we're seen.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned and stay close.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
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Welcome, welcome back to civic media.
Mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal, your believer in all things team locations, where they play and knowing all the information you can about sports because we're talking some sports today.
It's Monday.
It's the day after the Super Bowl.
The Olympics are going on.
We'll be talking more about that in the, in the second hour, along with Dr. Liarley, who has opinions and thoughts on the bad bunny performance at the halftime show.
and maybe even chat about the Turning Points USA show I heard amazing things about that we're just full of jorts and American flags.
So we'll talk more about that in the second hour.
Coming up after the 930 News, Sam Lybert is the state director here in Wisconsin for all voting is local.
Talking about the SAVE Act, the MAGA Act, and why these bills seek to intimidate, suffocate, and suppress voting here in Wisconsin as well around the country.
And if you want to be part of the conversation, if you want to have a say, if you want to tell us how you're feeling, all you have to do is pick up that phone.
You can call or text.
The number is the same.
It's 855-752-4842-855-75 civically.
Leave a comment on that live stream.
We are streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
Yeah, we're going to, it's a, it's going to be a fun show today.
Dom and I have been hanging out.
He played, I thought it was really funny.
You played.
jailbreak as a bumper music by thin Lizzie.
I always love that line in the course that tonight there's going to be a jailbreak somewhere in the city.
And I always think to myself, yeah, it's probably the jail.
This isn't a mystery.
This isn't a mystery.
It's like somewhere tonight, there's going to be a jail.
I'm not telling you where it's somewhere.
There'll be a jailbreak.
I think it's in the jail.
I think I solved the mystery right there.
I always great music being played here as our bumper music.
Thank you very much, Dom.
Appreciate you.
Now, folks, uh, we have ourselves a spring election coming up in April.
Some of you do have, uh, primaries.
And if you want to know more about your primaries, these are, you know, we have, excuse me, a Wisconsin state supreme court election in April.
That is probably, that is the most major, uh,
Point on that ballot for April, but you do have Possibly a primary coming up next week on Tuesday and you can go to my vote dot w i dot gov and you can put in your information It's great there because here's what's gonna happen when you look it up.
You're gonna look up You're gonna look up who he represents you you're gonna look up where your polling place is you're gonna look up whether or not you are registered I think you can still
If I'm not mistaken, let me check here.
I think you can still register to vote.
Just looking up
here.
But yeah, remember, you can register on the day in person, but you can also register, you can check your registration.
I believe you can still request a ballot for the UK.
Yeah.
Okay.
So Thomas saying
yes, you can still register to vote on my vote.wi.gov.
You can
register for absentee ballots to be sent to you for this entire election cycle.
It's very handy.
It's very important.
And I always encourage people to vote early just because you never know.
You never know what comes up.
You want to go on the day?
I get that.
If you can go on the day, that's great.
But if you can't, voting early is great.
That way it's out the way and you don't have to worry about it.
You have to sit there at 801 going, oh my God, I forgot to vote today.
And that's happened to me a couple of times in my life.
And it's usually in situations like this.
We're looking at a primary for a spring election.
Not everyone has one in Wisconsin.
It's moment by month.
So right now, East Troy, Waukesha County, Milwaukee County, Racine County will have various primaries.
Go to civic media.
I'm sorry.
Go to my vote.wi.gov.
and you can look up what's going to be on your ballot.
Right now, I live in Kenosha.
The only thing that's on my ballot is a primary for the Unified School District School Board.
I'm going to look up who those folks are.
I'm going to find out who is the person I feel is the best person for the job, whether it's someone who's returning or someone who wants to take over.
But that, I think, is important.
We talked to Naomi, Krister.
Naomi Kritzer last week.
about this.
She puts out a fantastic election guide for folks in her area, for her community in Minnesota in St.
Paul, and she makes it very entertaining.
But this is very important because, yeah, I think you know who you're going to vote for, for Wisconsin State Supreme Court.
I think you know who you're going to vote for, for Congress or for governor, maybe down the road with the governor's race.
I mean, I don't know.
We'll see who gets to the primary.
But my point is that these small races,
school board, county board, city council, things like that.
These are very, very important to be aware of because those are the people who make the decisions that affect you directly at your community level.
Those town board, village hall, all of that.
So go to myvote.wi.gov, look up your ballot, look up and see if you have a primary.
If you don't, you're off until April.
We'll see you in April.
We'll talk more about this in the coming months.
But if you do have a primary, like I do, you got
We can a day to look up who these people are what they are about and if you feel like they are the right people for the job because that's what they're doing They are applying for the job or they're applying to be rehired and you as of right now Have the power to say yay or nay to that If
we
see things like the mega act or the save act go through but that could be different it could be harder more difficult to vote here in this state and in this country
whether we're talking about absentee, absentee ballots, early voting, it's all on the line when it comes to these acts.
The fact that we, which are guaranteed by our Constitution the right to vote, these quote unquote political leaders are trying to change that for you.
and for our friends and family, and this affects everyone too.
And we're going to talk more about this with Samuel library from all voting is local on the other side of the break.
So don't go anywhere.
Got lots more coming up.
You want to be part of the conversation 8557 5248 4285 575 civic.
We are here on the civic media radio network.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned and stay
close.
on the Pacific Media Radio Network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your believer in all things democracy, and we are here today on a chilly Monday morning.
I hope you're having a good time.
Thank you for sharing your time with us this morning.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-484-2855.
75 Civic, leave a comment on that live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform we still call Twitter.
Still ahead after the 10 o'clock news, we're going to be talking to Dr. Kristen Lierly.
host of the Dr. Chris and Lyley show right here on the Civic Media Network and we are going to be talking about a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about what happens when states accept extended Medicaid coverage under the ACA.
You're going to be really shocked by this information you're about to hear.
with her when we talk about this coming up in the second hour.
And then we'll be discussing the Super Bowl show, the new the Patriots of New England versus the Seahawks of Seattle.
They played yesterday and I watched Bad Bunny perform a wonderful show.
But we'll talk more about that in the second hour.
right here on the show.
Thank you so much for being here.
We're coming to you live from Radial Park in Racine.
Dom is up in Madison right now.
And we are going to be bringing on right at this moment our first guest.
He is the state director of all voting is local.
He's state director here in Wisconsin.
Please welcome Sam Liber.
Good morning, Sam.
How are you today?
How are you doing this Monday morning?
Hey, Greg, I'm doing well and
You know, it's just another, you know, balmy day here in Wisconsin.
I was, I was telling Dom earlier, it's like I, I, I, I, I'm hesitant to say things about warmer weather because I feel like we could still get smacked in the face by wind, wind chills of like 60 below.
And that's going to be my fault because I said, oh, it's getting, it's getting warm outside shorts on.
Um, but yeah, we're, I'll take what I can get.
I'll take, I'll take mid to upper thirties, but I.
You are from the group.
You are the Wisconsin State Director of all voting is local.
And before we get into the meat of the discussion, I want to talk about what your organization does here in the state across the country to protect the right of voting.
Yeah, absolutely.
So can you hear me OK?
Yep, I can hear you.
You're good.
You're good.
OK, there we go.
So yeah, again.
I'm Sam Lybert, State Director with All Voting is Local.
Actually, before this role, I served as a municipal clerk and as an elected city council member.
So I've actually run elections and understand what it takes to administer them securely and fairly.
But All Voting is Local, we are nonpartisan pro-democracy organization.
We work year-round and state across the country to protect voters at the local level and support our local election officials, the people who actually run our elections.
We focus on making sure elections are accurate, secure, and accessible, not just on election day, but before and after as well.
And our work includes partnering directly with clerks, monitoring elections, countering misinformation, and stepping in when voters face unnecessary barriers, which we've had a lot of in Wisconsin.
in the past decade or more.
We don't take sides in elections, but our mission is to make sure that every eligible voter who can cast a ballot and make sure that their ballot is counted and that local officials have the tools and support that they need to do their jobs.
And I mean, I think that's, you know, to say it's very important is a vast understatement in what you're trying to do and especially in the face of what's going on.
from various measures coming out of Congress.
And I want to jump right into the MEGA Act, which was proposed by Brian Stile, who is the Congressman of the First District here in Wisconsin.
The MEGA Act stands for Make Elections Great Again.
And looking at this bill and looking at the laundry list of things that wants to enforce or ban, especially from your point of view, as someone who's worked in the election process, what's your first thought when you see things like, you know,
ban ban a ballot harvesting ban rank choice voting require photo identification proof of citizenship.
That's just some of them.
As a person who worked in that world, not just in the work you do now, what's the first thought you have in your head when you see that?
No, that's that's a great question.
You know, the make elections great again act.
It's it's not about election integrity.
You know, it's it's really about federal overreach and making voting harder for eligible Americans.
It's
it's centralizing power in Washington DC, it's overriding state election systems that we know already work, and it's really creating new barriers that will disproportionately harm folks at our group and many others work to make sure that they are able to cast about it, right, folks like seniors, voters with disabilities, military families, students, and of course the classic book of, you know, suppressing the vote for voters of color.
all the while without really solving any real existing problems.
And so those were my initial thoughts when I saw this come out.
And I sort of thought, here we go again, another attempt to federalize and use the 2020 big lie that the election was stolen and that our elections are not secure to sort of continue this crusade of suppressing voters' ability to cast a ballot and make sure it's counted.
And there's a few things you said in there that I want to point out like a few points.
First of all, you say it's another attempt because right now there's also the SAVE Act that's coming back again.
And I guess the main question for me is what is the difference between the SAVE Act and the MEGA Act?
Because they both seem to want to suppress, intimidate, and restrict voting.
But how are they different but yet the exact same?
I haven't read the latest version of the SAVE Act, but if I remember correctly, the SAVE Act is really about creating this national voter database that the federal government will use to essentially work to try to
force states to purge voter rules for people that they think are not, you know, qualified electors or not citizens, whatever the case may be.
So this is really sort of a companion piece or really
Um, uh, sort of, uh, you know, a, uh, conjoined, you know, you know, if you think of those, you know, old 1800s, you know, the conjoined twins at a circus, right?
This is sort of one of those things where it's, you know, it's the same body, um, or, you know, I'm a nerd.
So sort of like a Hydra from Dungeon and Dragons.
Okay.
Tell me more.
Am I talking your language?
Uh, but no, but no, you know, this bill, again, it's.
the the mega acts and the save are really you know they're one in the same um they're the cut from the same wool cloth um you know they're trying to federalize elections in ways that we've never seen before you know elections have always been run by states and our local clerks uh whether it's a red blue or purple state um with a lot of bipartisan safeguards you'll remember back in 2020 and even so to this day in georgia you know there's been a really
Solid secretary of state who's been a Republican who's pushed back on a lot of a lot of this because You know, it's it's about local control, right?
Like
that's
you know growing up in the 80s and 90s and you know as a former Republican myself like it's I was all it's all about local control and and the people at the states and the local level know best and and now we're sort of seeing this back treading of Local control and trying to centralize it with the federal government
especially coming from a group of individuals who have been, who basically have tattooed on their shoulders, less government.
It's all about less government, less involvement from the government.
I am from the government.
I am here to help you.
I mean, it's been what I've been told my entire, as a person of the 80s and 90s as well, I have been told my entire life that the Republicans want less government, less control, more freedom, all those things.
And, you know, from...
From a purely logistical standpoint, Sam, the election process is not easy when it's locally run.
There's a lot involved.
There's a lot of steps.
Just from whether you're talking about wrangling all the folks who are going to help to the actual process of putting out the ballots, all of that requires a lot of attention, a lot of detail, a lot of very, very pointed out processes.
What do you think of the moment when you think of a federal of federally run election?
I mean to me from a logistics point of view It sounds like a nightmare and I'm not talking because it's Republican or Democrat.
I mean a Nation-running election seems like it would be absolutely impossible to put together
Yeah, yeah, look I'll get to that in one second, but you know we are you know, we're a federal republic and
Powers that aren't explicitly stated in the Constitution are reserved to the states and one of those things is elections now Yes, every once in a while after Bush v goer 2000 we had the help America vote act and we've had a few smaller things Since then obviously we had the big one in the 60s with the civil rights and voting rights acts And every once in a while there are these moments in our history where the federal government Has to step in and and take a big swing to
put the balance on the levers of justice.
But right now, what this bill is attempting to correct is a non-issue.
It's not real.
It's purely partisan politics.
And so when I think of the federal government trying to intervene in this moment, specifically in this area, it's kind of scary.
You know, look, in Wisconsin, we have the most or second most decentralized
uh voting administration system in the country we have 1,850 different municipalities every municipality has a clerk who's in charge of elections and so on election day we essentially have almost 2,000 separate elections happening at once and then the way our state laws work is then we we reconcile we hold our boards of canvas at the municipal level
goes up to the county level and then ultimately up to the state level to certify, you know, if it's a statewide election for governor, supreme court, those sorts of things.
And by thinking that
You know all of a sudden the federal government now is going to kind of come in and tell us well now you have to do x y and z These people aren't allowed to vote you have to do this It adds just another layer to the bureaucracy and as a former clerk You know one of the things that we hated the most was sort of these unfunded mandates like this is what you have
to do
now Oh and by the way there's no more money attached to it there's no resources And you're sort of on your own and so
you know most of these clerks are from small towns they're under you know as you probably already know a lot of our municipalities are hurting for money while the state legislature sits on billions of dollars in um excess revenue from the past several years that they can't agree on how to spend and so when our our communities also start um taking budget cuts and hits
One of the first departments they cut from is the Corks office because they're not respected or perhaps they don't feel like what they do is important, right?
Everything goes to police, fire roads, which, you know, those are important things, but also running elections and municipal administration is also just as important.
And I think to put on top of that, the fact that we put into the Wisconsin Constitution, the inability for municipalities to accept money to help with those processes, you know, the famous Zuckerbucks, when they may seem like he was giving money to Democrat cities only.
But no, it wasn't the case.
There was just grant money being given to local municipalities to help run their elections in Wisconsin said no thank you on top of the fact or one of 13 states that does not allow Early early like counting they don't release the results But they can't but we can't even do that until the polls are closed Which always leads to the ballot dumps and ballot harvestings and conspiracy theories.
These are easily fixed Those are the problems that you I think you're referring to those are the things that we can take care of that we are not instead we are
are creating solutions for problems that do not exist.
And if you want more information on that, and I'll make sure that Don puts this in the show notes, look at what the Brennan Center has reported when it comes to voter ID and voter fraud.
Look at the Heritage Foundation trying to find voter fraud and finding so little, it actually does not mean we should be putting forth this sort of energy to quote, protect voting integrity.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you hit the nail in the head.
And the big one right now is that Monday processing bill.
Wisconsin's one of the few states that can't begin processing ballots.
It doesn't mean counting.
That doesn't mean looking at the results
before
election day, but simply opening up the envelopes and beginning that process.
And you're right.
It leads to more mis and disinformation.
We're going to talk more with Sam Lybert, who is the state director of all voting is local here on the show.
When you come back, don't go anywhere talking more about the mega act, talking more about
Protecting our ability to vote here in Wisconsin and throughout the country.
Listening to Civic Media mid mornings on Civic Media Radio Network.
My name is Greg Box.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
Welcome, welcome back to the civic media.
Mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your, your friend and confidant.
I'll keep your secrets.
I promise you that much.
Still come on the show.
We got Dr. Kristen Lyrely from the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show.
She'll be here after the 10 o'clock news.
to be talking about a story out of those, the journal Sentinel about what happens when states accept expanded Medicare under the ACA.
The, the results are going to shock you folks.
You're absolutely science, sciencing all day on this science Monday.
I'll tell you that much.
And then we're going to be talking about the super bowl.
We're going to be talking about the Olympics.
We're going to be talking about what I really care about is the bad bunny performance at the halftime show.
That's really what I was there for.
For me, it was, for me, it was bad bunny with some sports, but that's neither here nor there.
If you had a good time with it, if you enjoyed the sports ball, if you enjoyed
If you're enjoying the Olympics, we want to hear from you talking about that in the second hour.
But right now, we are talking to Sam Lybert, who is the Wisconsin State Director of All Voting is Local.
A non-partisan group seeks to secure and make sure we can vote in this country as if the Constitution doesn't already tell us and state laws tell us, we have people coming out saying, hey, you know, I got an idea.
Let's get rid of things.
That'll help.
But that's not what we're doing today.
We're talking about how we protect the process of voting here in this country.
And one thing you said up top was, all voting as a local is a nonpartisan group.
You do not take sides on the elections.
You just make sure that voting can be accessed by all who can legally vote, who are eligible to vote.
And this is how nonpartisan you are.
You wrote an op-ed with former Wisconsin governor Scott McCallum, Republican.
You said earlier, you are a former Republican yourself.
And that article was published last December.
of 2025, don't allow election deniers to sow doubt.
The fix is easy.
This is an op-ed that you and Scott wrote.
Talk more about that and the fact that we, you know, this is a nonpartisan issue that we, and there are supporters on both sides that say, what we have to do is take care of smaller problem, not smaller problem, but take care of the problems that exist and not create solutions for ones that don't.
Yeah.
So, um, I was really
Honored to to have written this with with governor McCallum.
It's hard for me not to call him Scott because we were on a first name basis now but No, this you know this op-ed really argued that trust in our election system matters
just
as much as security and that well-designed absentee voting plays a big role in that You know the absentee voting is
not just convenient, but it's essential.
I mean, essentially now about a third of the country, a third of Wisconsin, every election cycle votes absentee, whether that's by mail or in person.
And there's been some polling actually that's been that was done late last year that shows that there is bipartisan support for Monday processing to happen here in Wisconsin.
You know,
it's it's I'm
I was born in Milwaukee.
I'm Wisconsin.
I've tried escaping a few times when I was younger and it just kept pulling me back.
But I'm really sick and tired of people beating up on Milwaukee and always making false accusations that there's these late night dumps or people going to bed thinking one candidate, one, and then they're still counting ballots in Milwaukee until 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in the morning before the final results are in.
got 100 and some thousand absentee ballots on average per election.
You know, that's that's a lot of ballots to count.
And so we're just saying if we could begin processing them the day before or however that might look, we're going to have faster results on election night.
And then we also have more resources available on election day to handle in day voting.
And these this has been
Attempted a few times and it always seems it almost always seems like oh, there's the finish line We're almost there and it's not brought up for a vote it gets voted down But it but it's there and it's bipartisan measures from the state house But it never seems to make it and I don't want to get conspiratorial on a Monday morning But it just feels like it gets there and then either someone gets cold feet or they say well This is you know, it's as far as it's going to get but We keep trying to do it
But we just can't cross that finish line.
Why do you think that may be?
Man, well, if I should have asked you that at the beginning of it.
Yeah.
You know, it's, yes, unfortunate, right?
It seems like, you know, it was one year it will pass the assembly and then the next it'll pass the Senate, but it can never sort of seem to match up, right?
And.
definitely we believe at all voting is local and a lot of our other partners we work with like if this was just brought to a floor vote it would pass because we we think that all or most the Democrats would vote for it and then you don't need a handful of Republicans to get across the line I know sometimes the different parties their caucuses use rules right like if a majority of our caucus doesn't support a bill we're not gonna bring it forward but you know we we are lobbying hard for assembly
Speaker Voss to bring this forward.
Senate Majority Leader Devin Lemahue actually I think authored like the first a version of this in the past decade.
Senate President Felskowski she's also been a co-author in the past before so we're hoping if we give this to the floor
it can get a vote.
Right now, the Senate actually doesn't even have an elections committee.
They didn't constitute one at the beginning of the session last year, which was like the first time in 20 years that the Senate hasn't had an elections committee.
So we're saying just bring it straight to the floor, up or down vote.
Let's see where folks stand.
Because, you know, 2026 is a big year.
I know we say that every year, but you know, we have huge elections, especially in Wisconsin here and across the country.
Like, let's just get it done.
Let's join the rest of the country.
And let's let's put this missed this information.
garbage behind us.
And again, this is an opt-in.
Cities don't have to do this, but I think Milwaukee wants to.
And I've talked with other medium to smaller communities who've also said, yeah, it might be great to process them on Monday because I don't have that many poll workers.
Then I can, I'm not using, they're not using other bandwidth on election day processing absentee ballots.
We'll do that to the day before.
And then I have them for my in-day, in-person voting.
Sam Lybert is the Wisconsin state director for all voting is local.
Sam, seriously, it always goes by so fast when we're having these really, really good conversations on voting.
But we're going to be talking more about this in the coming months because it is important to stay informed on all things voting, your rights, how you can access ballots and what you can still do in the face of these bills that are being pushed forth by Congress.
Thank you so much, Sam, for being here today.
We'll make sure that your groups will make sure that all voting is local is in the show notes so people can see what's going on there.
But we'd love to talk to you again sooner than later.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day, my friend.
Thank you, Greg.
All right, when we come back, Dr. Kristen Lyrely is coming onto the show.
She is the host of the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show, and she'll be talking to us about what happens when states accept the expanded Medicaid coverage that's been available for a long time.
The results will shock you.
Don't go anywhere.
You're listening to Civic Media, mid-morning.
My name is Greg Buck.
Stay tuned.
Stay informed.
Stay close.
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