Bobby Kaltenbach

The political strategies used in the Wisconsin elections this summer highlight a sad truth about the current state of division in American government.

In recent weeks, Wisconsin held recall elections for nine state senators due to widespread discontent with the government. These stemmed mainly from the events surrounding the republican-supported Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, which decreased the pensions of public workers and placed strict limitations on collective bargaining. The election results saw Democrats hang on to all three of their challenged seats. Republicans lost two of their six challenged seats, but retained a majority in the State Senate.

However, interest groups are coming under fire for using underhanded strategies to obtain votes. One particular conservative group, Americans for Prosperity, is facing heavy criticism for sending absentee ballots to two heavily democratic congressional districts, instructing voters to return their ballots to the city clerk "before August 11." In actuality, the election was held two days earlier, on August 9. Because of this, the Government Accountability Board has instructed voters to be wary of absentee ballots that have been sent by third party organizations.

Another conservative interest group, called We're Watching Wisconsin, was revealed to have published four reference guides for voters that "contained numerous and significant factual errors."

Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, it was discovered that one of the candidates running in the River Falls Democratic primary, Isaac Weix, was actually a conservative who had decided to run only when asked by Republican leaders. Evidently, Wisconsin Republicans were trying to guarantee an ideological victory by attempting to pit two conservatives against one another.

This type of campaign corruption is sadly reflective of the current state of American government. Instead of letting voters get the facts and make an informed choice about leadership, political parties are increasingly resorting to deception in order to get power. This will surely lead to lower voter participation as people become more disillusioned with the political system. As Wisconsin Democratic candidate Shelly Moore put it, "I think our goal should be to encourage people to be a part of the democratic process. And you don't do that with false candidates and manipulations."