Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson says Democrats are trying to paint Republicans in a bad light following the January 6th riot in Washington DC. On Fox News Sunday Morning Futures, Johnson continued his objections to the increased security measures at the US Capitol. 

“As I’ve been saying that this is, the seven or eight foot fence with concertina wire is really meant to create a narrative that the 74 million Americans who supported and voted for President Trump are suspected domestic terrorists or possible armed insurrectionists that the capital needs to be protected against. I don’t think anything could be further from the truth.”

Johnson originally backed a protest against the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral votes, but lifted it following the assault on the Capitol Building by Trump supporters. 

Johnson also says that this week’s power failures in Texas due to extreme cold are the fault of renewable energy sources.

“What we saw in Texas certainly shows what folly the Green New Deal would be, how unreliable wind and solar power generation really is and how he needs fossil fuel backup. We’ve also learned how vulnerable our grid is to, again, the unreliable green energy, but also potentially to geomagnetic disturbance from the Sun, solar winds, and also EMP attacks.”

Texas is on its own power grid, and most of its power comes from coal or gas plants, many of which were not protected from the cold and either shut down or were turned off to prevent damage.

Two Legislative democrats would like to see Wisconsin move to a ranked choice voting system.

State Representative Mark Spreitzer says the change would allow people to not only vote for who they would hope to win, but also who they prefer to win. 

“And if your first choice comes in last, and really can’t possibly win, they’re eliminated but now we look at who your second choice was and that candidate gets your vote and we see if somebody gets to 50 percent plus 1 there.”

Spritzer says that as it stands, people may want to vote for a third party candidate, but can’t for fear of someone else they really don’t want winning the election. 

“And that process be repeated if there are a lot of candidates with the person getting the least votes eliminated, but instead of those voters not really having a chance to weigh in on the election, their votes go to their second or third choice and so on.”

He says the method ensures that whoever wins an election really does have the approval of a majority of residents and creates more fairness in an election. It’s unclear if the bill will see the floor in either the Assembly or the Senate. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is predicting a low turnout ahead of next week’s February primary election.

Administrator Megan Wolfe says that’s not unusual. “February elections, especially in an odd number year, always have unfortunately very low turnout and it looks to be that case for it for this one as well.”

The only major state-wide race is for state superintendent for schools, but cities and counties across the state are also holding run-off elections for local seats. 

Wolfe says even with a low turnout, it’s still business as usual for local clerks, who are handling run-offs for town, city and county seats. 

“Just because it’s typically a low turnout election doesn’t mean that your local election official doesn’t still have to do all the work that they would anticipating that everybody’s going to show up, right?”

Over 100 local races are on the ballot. If you’ve still got an absentee ballot for the race, you should get it in the mail immediately. 

Polls open next week Tuesday the 16th at 7 am.