Reading Time: < 1 minute

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

While a Wisconsin state senator, Tom Tiffany voted for state budgets that funded the state Department of Corrections — not for computer tablets the department made available to prison inmates.

Tiffany’s votes were raised by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election for governor.

Crowley has been criticized for approving tablets for county jail inmates.

In response, Crowley claimed that Tiffany, now the Republican gubernatorial nominee and congressman, “voted for these types of iPads.”

Tiffany voted for the 2017-19 and 2019-21 state budgets. They contained thousands of provisions across numerous departments.

In 2018, Corrections made tablets available to inmates to purchase.

The Legislature did not take votes on the tablet program.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Wisconsin Watch: Did David Crowley approve providing tablets to jail inmates?
Wisconsin State Legislature: Wisconsin Senate Roll Call 2017 Regular Session
Wisconsin State Legislature: Wisconsin Senate Roll Call 2019 Regular Session
CBS 58 TV: 'Misinformation out there which we'd like to clear up': Milwaukee County officials discuss jail-issued tablets
Appleton Post-Crescent: Wisconsin is spending $2.5 million on new tablets in prisons. Find out what's changing and why.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site. *** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. *** You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules.

Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Waunakee, Wis.” instead of “Waunakee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Wisconsin Watch content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.

For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org

Did Wisconsin governor candidate Tom Tiffany vote for iPads for prison inmates?

by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch
October 20, 2026

<h1>Did Wisconsin governor candidate Tom Tiffany vote for iPads for prison inmates?</h1>
<p class="byline">by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch <br />October 20, 2026</p>

<div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:26% auto">
<figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img src="https://wisconsinwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Wisconsin_Watch_fact_brief-782x409.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1278996 size-full" /></figure>
<div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p><em><em><a href="https://www.wisconsinwatch.org/">Wisconsin Watch</a></em> partners with&nbsp;<a href="https://gigafact.org/">Gigafact</a>&nbsp;to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. <a href="https://wisconsinwatch.org/2023/05/how-wisconsin-watch-checks-claims-for-its-gigafact-fact-briefs/">Read our methodology</a> to learn how we check claims.</em></p>
</p></div>
</div>
<div class="wp-block-group">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">No.</h2>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img src="https://gigafact-app-images.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/factBriefImage.jpeg" alt="" style="width:150px;height:auto" /></figure>
</p></div>
<p>While a Wisconsin state senator, Tom Tiffany voted for state budgets that funded the state Department of Corrections — not for computer tablets the department made available to prison inmates.</p>
<p>Tiffany’s votes were raised by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 election for governor.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Crowley has been criticized for <a href="https://wisconsinwatch.org/2026/09/wisconsin-crowley-tablets-milwaukee-county-jail-inmates-sheriff-office-tiffany-election/">approving</a> tablets for county jail inmates. </p>
<p>In response, Crowley <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5LDPyITvLg">claimed</a> that Tiffany, now the Republican gubernatorial nominee and congressman, “voted for these types of iPads.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>Tiffany voted for the <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2017/related/votes/senate/sv0123">2017-19</a> and <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2019/related/votes/senate/sv0044">2019-21</a> state budgets. They contained thousands of provisions across numerous departments.</p>
<p><a href="https://cbs58.com/news/misinformation-out-there-which-wed-like-to-clear-up-milwaukee-county-officials-discuss-jail-issued-tablets?">In</a> <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2024/06/12/why-wisconsin-is-spending-2-5-million-on-new-tablets-in-prisons/73194433007/">2018</a>, Corrections made tablets available to inmates to purchase.</p>
<p>The Legislature did not take votes on the tablet program.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sources</h2>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://gigafact.org/fact-brief-quiz/wisconsinwatch"><img src="https://wisconsinwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/take_fact_brief_quiz.ea0075f4-1-782x440.jpg" alt="Think you know the facts? Put your knowledge to the test. Take the Fact Brief quiz" class="wp-image-1300309" /></a></figure></p>
<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/2026/10/wisconsin-governor-candidate-tiffany-prison-inmates-ipads-vote-crowley-election/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org&quot;&gt;Wisconsin Watch&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/wisconsinwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cropped-WCIJ_IconOnly_FullColor_RGB-1.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;amp;quality=100&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p>
&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=1321499&amp;amp;ga4=G-D2S69Y9TDB&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://wisconsinwatch.org/2026/10/wisconsin-governor-candidate-tiffany-prison-inmates-ipads-vote-crowley-election/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/wisconsinwatch.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Did Wisconsin governor candidate Tom Tiffany vote for iPads for prison inmates?

No.

Sources

Read More Fact Briefs