Wisconsin has one more election coming up this year — on Nov. 5. We’ll elect a new president, a U.S. Senator, congressional representatives, and lots of state senators and representatives.
WUWM has been working to make our election coverage more useful and accessible to you. This work is driven by an election survey that we opened to the public last fall, asking for your help shaping our election coverage. We've received more than 1,000 responses since then.
Our mission for election coverage is to equip Milwaukee-area residents to make decisions and affect change. We want to answer your election questions and help you better understand the people around you. With two months to go until the big election, here are some of the special projects we're working on.
Gertie's Guide to Elections
Remember Schoolhouse Rock? The short, animated videos helped explain government and civics in a fun, accessible way.
WUWM is taking inspiration from Schoolhouse Rock with a new animated series called Gertie's Guide to Elections.
Gertie was a mama duck that built a nest in downtown Milwaukee during World War II, and in doing so, captured the nation’s hearts.
Now, her great-great-great-great grandneice (also named Gertie) is helping her ducklings, and us, understand how the voting process works.
As the Nov. 5 election approaches, WUWM will be releasing short episodes focused on why it’s important to vote, how to vote, how elections in Wisconsin work and what to expect on election day.
We’ve been working with a local illustrator and animator, Mark Peterson, to create these short videos. And, you will hear some familiar voices in them, including WUWM's Environmental Reporter Susan Bence as Gertie.
We will be posting the videos on our website as well as on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. The first one is out now and new ones will be released every two weeks leading up to Election Day.
Voter Guide
WUWM is continuing to produce an online voter guide ahead of each election. It's a tool to help you learn more about who and what you're voting for and to answer election questions.
This election, Wisconsin voters are electing new representatives to the state Assembly and Senate. It’s the first election under new legislative maps that aren’t heavily gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. We have a map tool you can use to zoom in on where you live and find which Assembly or Senate District you’re in and who the candidates are.
We’ve heard from people through our election survey that it can be hard to find information on these more local, down-ballot races. We’re trying to help fill that information gap.
This election, we're also making a printed voter guide to help Milwaukee-area residents learn what's on their ballot. We will be handing out the printed voter guides at libraries and other public places. Stay tuned!
Pocket Guide
To help share election resources, we created WUWM's Pocket Guide. It's based on the fortune tellers, or cootie catchers, we used to make out of folded paper in middle school.
The pocket guide includes links to our online voter guide, election FAQs, the Gertie videos and our election survey.
We'll be handing out the pocket guide at our Doors Open Milwaukee event on Sept. 28 and you can print your own out here.
Voter roundtables
WUWM has been reaching out to people who filled out our election survey to ask them to participate in voter roundtables. These are kind of like focus groups, where we dig in to what Wisconsin voters are thinking about the presidential candidates and the issues this election.
Our first roundtable was back in the spring, with a mix of voters of different political views. Then we had one leading up to the RNC, with Republicans. Our most recent roundtable was with left-leaning voters, to see how they feel about Kamala Harris taking Joe Biden's place as the Democratic nominee.
People who filled out our election survey said they want to hear from people with different political views. Our hope is that hearing from Wisconsin voters in-depth provides insight during a contentious election year.
And, we will continue to gather and incorporate your feedback into our election coverage up to and after Election Day. So, please fill out our election survey below.
