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Wisconsin Uprising Sites

New Voters

 New voters may register at the polls on election day with written proof of their address, i.e. driver's license, utility bill, etc.

Some municipalities, depending upon the population, may have other voter registration requirements. Please contact the clerk of your municipality to learn about voter registration requirements in your municipality.. To vote by absentee ballot contact the clerk.
For further information on voting proceedures go to: http://elections.state.wi.us/sebpage32.html

Voting by absentee ballot for an election:

Any qualified elector who is unable or unwilling to appear at the polling place on election day may request to vote by absentee ballot. A qualified elector is any U.S. citizen, who will be 18 years of age or older on election day, who has resided in the ward or municipality where he or she wishes to vote for at least 10 days before the election.

TO OBTAIN AN ABSENTEE BALLOT YOU
MUST MAKE A REQUEST IN WRITING.

Contact your municipal clerk, (see contact information below) and request that an application for an absentee ballot be sent to you for the primary or election or both. You may also request an absentee ballot by letter. Your written request must list your voting address within the municipality where you wish to vote, the address where the absentee ballot should be sent, if different, and your signature. You can also personally go to the clerk's office, complete a written application, and vote an absentee ballot.

The deadline for making application to vote absentee by mail is 5:00 pm on the Friday before the election. The deadline for voting an absentee ballot in the Clerk's office is 5:00 pm on the Monday before the election.

All absentee ballots must be returned to the municipal clerk so the clerk can deliver them to the proper polling place before the polls close on the day of the election Any ballots received after the polls close will not be counted.

For futher information or to download and print an absentee ballot applecationplease go to:
http://elections.state.wi.us/sebpage33.html

Clerks and Polling Information for Southwest Wisconsin 

VILLAGE OF BARNEVELD Clerk : MICHELLE L. WALKER 
403 EAST CTY ID
BARNEVELD, WI 53507-0007 
Telephone (608) 924-6861 Fax (608) 924-3056

TOWN OF BLACK EARTH Clerk BARBARA PARRELL
1704 BLUE MOUNDS ST
BLACK EARTH, WI 53515
Telephone (608) 767-2447

VILLAGE OF BLACK EARTH Clerk: TINA BUTTERIS 
BOX 347, 1210 MILLS ST
BLACK EARTH, WI 53515-0347 
Telephone (608) 767-2563 Fax (608) 767-2064

Village of Blue Mounds Clerk: Linda Cory
PO Box 189 Blue Mounds 53517 
437-5197
All elections are held at Village Hall, 11011 Brigham Ave
Poll Hours are 9 AM - 8PM

Town of Blue Mounds Clerk; Goplin, Nancy
2531 County Hwy F, Blue Mounds 53517 
437-4879
All elections are held at the town Garage, 2110 Business 18/151 East
polls are open 9 AM- 8PM

Town of Cross Plains - Clerk: Klock, Janet T
8697 W. Mineral Point Rd. 
798-3241
All elections are held at 3734 CTH P
Polls are open 7 AM- 8 PM

Village of Cross Plains Clerk: Ann Walder, 798-0189
2417 Brewery Rd Cross Plains 53528
Cross Plains 53528 
798-0189
All elections are held at the Municipal Building, 
2417 Brewery Rd.  
Polls are open 7:00 AM - 8:00 PM.
Furhter info : http://www.cross-plains.wi.us/

CITY OF DODGEVILLE Clerk: CHERYL MENON 
100 E FOUNTAIN ST
DODGEVILLE, WI 53533 
Telephone (608) 930-2882 Fax (608) 930-3520

Town of Montrose Clerk: Wood, John (deputy) 
1341 Diane Avenue, Belleville 53508 
424-3848
All elections are held at the Community Center, 1341 Diane Ave
Polls are open 9 AM- 8 PM

Village of Mt. Horeb: Cheryl Sutter
138 E Main St 
Mt Horeb 53572 
437-6884
All elections are held at the fire station at 120 S 1st Street. 
Voting hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.. 
Absentee voting can be done at the Village Office at 138 E Main Street 
between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday - Friday.
Furhter info : http://www.mounthorebwi.info/voting.htm

Town of Perry Clerk: Mary Price
1004 State Road 78 
Mount Horeb 53572 
437-4553
All elections are held at the Town Hall, 10084 CTH A 
Voting hours are from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM 

Town of Primrose Clerk: Winnie Losenneger, 
8762 County Road G 
Mount Horeb 53572 
832-4471
All elections are held at the Town Hall, 8468 CTH A
Voting hours are from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM

TOWN OF RIDGEWAY Clerk: MARIAN L. STRUTT 
6300 PRAIRIE RD
RIDGEWAY, WI 53582 

Town of Springdale, Vicki Anderson 437-3133, //www.swwap.org/old_site/townhall@merr.com">townhall@merr.com
All elections are held at the 2379 Town Hall Rd., Mt. Horeb, WI 53572-2454. 
The polls are open in the town hall from 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. 
Town hall phone and fax: 437-6230.

Town of Vermont Clerk Marian Swoboda
10362 Bell Rd. 
Black Earth 53515 
767-2357
All elections are held at theVermont Town Hall , 4017 CTH JJ
767-2457   Fax 767-2555
Voting hours are from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM 
e-mail: townclerk@globaldialog.com 
Furhter info : http://www.vermonttown.org

Town of Verona: Rose Johnson, 845-7187, rmjohnson@town.verona.wi.us
All elections are held at the Town Hall, 335 N. Nine Mound Road, Verona. 
Hours are 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.  
Furhter info : http://www.town.verona.wi.us/govt/govern.htm

City of Verona Clerk, JoAnnWainwright
111 Lincoln St. Verona 53593 
845-6495
All elections are held at
1. Verona Public Library - Residents of Aldermanic Districts 1 and 2 will vote at the library.
2. City Hall - Residents of Aldermanic Districts 3 and 4 will vote at City Hall.
7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Further info : http://www.ci.verona.wi.us/Admin/Voting.htm#voterregistration

Dane County Board

Pat Downing, 27th District

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• 256 Tyvand Rd

  Blanchardville, WI 53516

• Phone: (608) 527-2472
• Email: downing@countyofdane.com
• Homepage: Click Here

Wisconsin State Assembly Representative

Sondy Pope-Roberts, 80th District

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• Room 111 North

  State Capitol

  P.O. Box 8953

  Madison, WI 53708

• Office Phone: (608) 266-3520
• Fax: 608-282-3679
• Email: Rep.Pope-Roberts@legis.wisconsin.gov

• Homepage: Click Here

Wisconsin State Senator

Jon Erpenbach, 27th District

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• State Capitol

  P.O. Box 7882

  Madison, WI 53707-7882

• Office Phone: (608) 266-6670
• DC Fax: (202) 225-6942
• Email: Sen.Erpenbach@legis.wisconsin.gov
• Homepage: Click Here

→ Click On Fighting Bob's Photo To Hear Him Speak

Fighting Bob LaFollette

The following is reprinted from the Wisconsin State Historical Society Website.

The Career of Robert M. La Follette

Robert La Follette developed his fierce opposition to corporate power and political corruption as a young man. Affiliated with the Republican Party for almost his entire career, La Follette embarked on a political path that would take him to Congress, the governorship of Wisconsin, and the U.S. Senate. His support for progressive reforms, rousing oratory, and frequent clashes with party leaders earned him the nickname "Fighting Bob."

Born in Primrose township, Dane County, in 1855, La Follette worked as a farm laborer before entering the University of Wisconsin in 1875. After graduating in 1879, La Follette launched his political career as district attorney the following year. Elected to Congress in 1884, La Follette was defeated in 1890 by Democrat Allen Bushnell. While for some people a defeat might have signaled the end of a political career, for La Follette it marked the beginning of a lifelong fight for political reform.

La Follette's career as a reformer began in earnest a few months later when the state Republican leader, Senator Philetus Sawyer, offered him a bribe to fix a court case against several former state officials. Furious that Sawyer would try to use money to influence the legal system, La Follette refused the bribe, angrily denouncing the use of money to shut out the voice of the people. For nearly ten years, La Follette traveled around the state speaking out against the influence of crooked politicians and the powerful lumber barons and railroad interests that dominated his own party. Elected governor in 1900, La Follette pledged to institute his own form of political reform.

Until that time, the candidates whose names appeared on ballots were selected by party leaders in private caucuses. Drawing on the ideas of other reformers to make politics more democratic, La Follette successfully pushed the legislature to pass measures instituting direct primary elections, which gave voters the right to choose their own candidates for office. He supported measures that doubled the taxes on the railroads, broke up monopolies, preserved the state's forests, protected workers' rights, defended small farmers, and regulated lobbying to end patronage politics. La Follette worked closely with professors from the University of Wisconsin to help the state become "a laboratory of democracy." By the time he joined the U.S. Senate in 1906, La Follette had become a national figure.

In Washington, La Follette pushed for the same kind of reforms he had promoted in Wisconsin. He often spoke at length on the corruption of government and the abuse of industrial workers. Arguing that the entire nation's economy was dominated by fewer than one hundred corporate leaders, La Follette supported the growth of unions as a check on the power of large corporations. In 1909, La Follette and his wife, Belle, founded "La Follette's Weekly Magazine," a journal that campaigned for woman suffrage, racial equality, and other progressive causes.

Though La Follette supported Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election, he adamantly opposed U.S. entry into World War I, believing that disputes should be solved peacefully. Although he was accused of being unpatriotic, La Follette believed that American's involvement in the war would end democratic reforms at home. Though critics declared that his opposition to the war was political suicide, La Follette was re-elected to the Senate in 1922. In 1924, he ran for president on the Progressive ticket and received almost 5 million votes, losing to Republican Calvin Coolidge. La Follette died the following year.

Links for Fighting Bob LaFollette

• FightingBob.com - in the spirit of Bob Lafollette, posts by Ed Garvey. Also has information on Fighting Bob Fest held each September.
• Britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/326297/Robert-M-La-Follette - Online Britannica Entry
• WisconsinHistory.org/whi/advancedSearch.asp (Type Robert La Follette as the keyword) - Images of Fighting Bob.

images/bob_exhibit.jpg

 Above - Exhibit in the Mt. Horeb Area Museum

images/LaFollette.jpeg 

Bust of "Fighting Bob" at the State Capital.

Photo by and thanks to Lisa Wells

"'Oh, that's that '60s stuff' or 'We left that behind in the '30s, '40s, '50s. This is the '90s.' It's not like that. These tidy little decade packages are only a media convenience used to trivialize and dismiss important ideas and events. No, it's like a river. My elders, who led those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again, are the headwaters. What they sang, thought, did, floats down to where I stand in the river, and, if I take the time to root around, ask, listen, I can reach down and take out what I need to understand the world I'm in."

The following are some progressive quotes. If you have a favorite quote you want to share, pass it along to swwaplist@gmail.com

• "We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change." —
• "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters." -Frederick Douglass

• "Our community belongs to us and whether it is mean or majestic, whether arrayed in glory or covered in shame, we cannot but share its character and destiny." -Frederick Douglass

"There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land" -Mark Twain

• "A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain." -Mark Twain

• "Never try to walk across a river because it has an average depth of four feet." -Martin Friedman

• "It takes some perspective to think in billions. Keep the following in mind: one thousand seconds is about 17 minutes. One million seconds is about eleven and a half days. One billion seconds is about 32 years." -Tim Weiner

• "Americans are so benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." -J. Bartlet Brebner

• "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right . . and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." -John Adams

• "I believe there is something out there watching over us. Unfortunately it's the government." -Woody Allen

• "I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it" -Eugene Debs

• "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" -Plato

• "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy

• "Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man." -Stewart Udall

• "When politicians and pundits say the American people want free trade, capital gains tax reductions, and less government regulation, it makes no sense. Most people couldn't care less about these things. But if you substitute the phrase 'the power elite' for 'the American people,' the meaning becomes clear." -Randy Schutt, Inciting Democracy

• We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. -Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

• It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. -Voltaire
• "People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security." -Benjamin Franklin

• "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -Abraham Lincoln

• 
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

• "Security, the chief pretence of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head". -George Bernard Shaw

• "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes". -Henry David Thoreau

• "He who shits in a road will meet flies on his return." -African proverb

• "The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without." -Dwight Eisenhower

• "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." -Edward Abbey

• "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country....corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." -Abraham Lincoln

• "It has long been recognized, however, that the special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only the economy but also the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process . . .The state need not permit it own creation to consume it." -Justices White, Brennan and Marshall in First National Bank of Boston vs. Belotti, 1978

• "A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation" -Howard Scott

• Sure, we were young. We were arrogant. We were ridiculous. There were excesses. We were brash. We were foolish. We had factional fights. But we were right. -Abbie Hoffman

• "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." -Edmund Burke

• "What you do is of little significance. But it is very important that you do it" -Gandhi

• "Few people at the beginning of the 19th century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted" -John Kenneth Galbraith

• "My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." -Miguel de Unamuno

• "Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian." -Robert Orben

• "Americans keep telling us how successful their system is - then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night". -A European official during the G-8 economic summit in Denver, 1997

• "Appeasement' is the policy of feeding your friends to a crocodile, one at a time, in hopes that the crocodile will eat you last." -Franklin D. Roosevelt

• "Whenever a fellow tells me he is bipartisan, I know he is going to vote against me" -Harry Truman

• "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." -GK Chesterton

• "The censorial power is in the people over the government and not in the government over the people" -James Madison

• "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging conceptions and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships. There is the whole case against censorship in a nutshell." -George Bernard Shaw

• "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right . . and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers." -John Adams

• "I never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that has" -Margaret Mead

• "It takes a whole village to raise a child" -African proverb

• "More than a billion people in our world today survive on less than $370 a year, while Americans, who constitute five percent of the world's population, purchase fifty percent of its cocaine. If the world's population, which has doubled in our lifetime, doubles again by the middle of the next century, how could anyone hope to escape the catastrophic consequences - the wrath to come? But we turn our backs on such unpleasantness and contemplate the happier prospects of our technological dreams. . ." -Thomas Cahil

• "four civilization is destroyed, it will not be by barbarians from below. Our barbarians come from above." -Henry Demarest Lloyd

• "Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?" -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• "One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means." 
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." -Noam Chomsky

• "The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without." -Dwight Eisenhower

• "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not take it from them, but to inform their discretion." -Thomas Jefferson

• "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt . . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself." -Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Taylor) 1789

• "Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse
The corporations run the country and then they make the news
Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes
Who will tell the people that we're living in these times” –David Rovics (DavidRovics.com)

• "Conservation is an act of democracy, the greatest good for the greatest numbers for the longest time. Surely, the protection of these natural treasures is fundamental to 'homeland security'." -Terry Tempest Williams

• "Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top." -Edward Abbey

• "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -Edward Abbey

• "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

• "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. - The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America," -Thomas Jefferson (July 4, 1776)

This progressive group also feels that when American citizens remain uninformed and apathetic, they do not vote, and their democratic government is then weakened.  The group is concerned that this apathetic attitude is growing in America and wants to challenge that apathetic way of being. Hence, SWWAP has been formed.

For more information: E-mail: swwaplist@gmail.com