WISCONSIN VOTERS headed to the polls yesterday in a rare recount election that is seen as a referendum on hardline Republican tactics used by the state’s governor to cut spending and curb the rights of labour unions.
If Democrats succeed in their effort to oust six Republican state senators following a weeks-long standoff in February over Scott Walker’s proposal to cut collective bargaining rights for public employees, it will not only shift power within Wisconsin’s state legislature but give an important boost to unions that are leading the fight.
The election is being closely watched in Washington, where interest groups on both sides of the political aisle – unions on the left and conservative activists such as the Club for Growth on the right – have spent an estimated $30 million (€21 million) on the recall campaign. Next week Republicans will have their own chance to flex their muscles when two Democratic state senators will be up for recall election.
“If labour wins, I think you can see them taking this fight to other states that have done similar things in collective bargaining,” says Jennifer Duffy, a senior analyst at the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
“If they aren’t successful, it actually emboldens other governors who have tried to deal with collective bargaining issues and it is a setback for labour nationally.”
Following the long stalemate over an increase in the US debt ceiling, the election has also come to represent the bigger fight over how to tackle long-term deficits – whether Republicans are right to focus on cost-cutting and trimming benefits for costly government programmes or if Democrats are correct in their call for tax increases on the wealthy.
Like any high-stakes election, there have also been allegations of voter fraud. Among the influential groups shaping the debate is Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an organisation that has been linked to the Koch brothers, the industrial magnates who are active in conservative politics.
A complaint filed to the state’s government accountability board by Wisconsin Democrats alleges AFP delivered fliers to voters that contained false information about absentee ballot requirements.
The Democratic group charged that AFP displayed a “continued pattern of tampering with the electoral process in Wisconsin with elaborate, illegal and fraudulent schemes designed to suppress Democratic votes”.
On its website, AFP acknowledged sending letters to members for absentee ballot applications that were incorrect, but blamed the error on a printing mistake.
“Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin did not intend to print the incorrect absentee deadline or confuse voters in any way,” it said, adding it was contacting the voters to clarify the information.
In a country with 7,382 state legislative seats that rarely garner national attention, the fate of at least three seats in Wisconsin – the number Democrats will have to win to take the majority in the upper chamber – has become a rehearsal for activists who will shape the 2012 election, including the tools they use to organise. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011