Swing State Wisconsin's Ballot Drop Box Battle Heats Up

The battle over absentee ballot drop boxes in the battleground Badger State rages on nearly three months after the liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a previous decision and ruled the ballot receptacles are legal.

From the left going absolutely apoplectic over a central Wisconsin mayor’s decision to cart away his city’s only drop box to small towns using utility bill drop boxes for ballot containers, there’s never a dull day in this critical swing state. 

‘Nothing Nefarious Going on’ 

On Sunday, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny, as the Associated Press reported, “donned a hard hat and used a dolly” to remove the central Wisconsin city’s only absentee ballot box. Diny’s move may not have come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Wausau politics. The conservative this year ran his mayoral campaign in large part on his opposition to the drop boxes. He beat the far-left incumbent. 

Wausau City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde had, according to reports, decided last week to place the drop box outside city hall without approval from the Wausau City Council. Bernarde, AP reported, told The Washington Post that she discovered on Monday that the drop box was missing and reported the matter to Theresa Wetzsteon, Marathon County’s Democrat district attorney. Wetzsteon told the Post on Wednesday that her office is now investigating. 

Diny could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening, but he has told other news outlets that he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. 

“This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,” Diny told the AP Wednesday. “I’m a member of staff. There’s nothing nefarious going on here. I’m hoping for a good result.” 

Diny told the Associated Press that he and the clerk had not discussed the drop box being reactivated before it was positioned outside City Hall late last week. The mayor said he decided to act after realizing the drop box was “not secure,” according to AP.

Leftists Pounce

Left-wing activists want his political head because the mayor, according to AP, simply wanted the city council to weigh in on whether Wausau would use the dropbox this general election season. The leftist voter turnout organization All Voting Is Local (AVL) insisted that the mayor is “defying” the city clerk. 

“This is an egregious and physical attack on drop boxes by an election denier who is restricting voter access to the ballot box,” the group’s director Sam Liebert declared in a press release. “The Wisconsin Attorney General needs to look into the events that took place immediately. Voters in Wausau and beyond deserve the right to vote via drop box.”

For those scoring along at home, All Voting is Local is the brainchild of the leftist Leadership Conference Education Fund. AVL is one of the many election integrity deniers that is all in on mail-in voting and expanding polling and ballot drop-off locations, according to nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch. 

“Hannah Fried, a Democratic political operative who worked on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, is the national campaign director of All Voting is Local,” InfluenceWatch reports. 

Not surprisingly, the accomplice media has gone all-in on the story, painting the mayor and fellow critics of the legally suspect drop boxes in Wisconsin as vote suppressors. But while Diny and Bernarde disagree on the issue, they originally agreed that absentee ballot drop boxes would not be used in last month’s primary elections.  

“The clerk has an opinion. I have an opinion. So one of the things we decided to do was it didn’t make sense to rush it for a number of reasons, security, cameras, locations,” the mayor told WSAW-TV in Wausau in early August. 

Apparently things have changed.

‘Political Power Over Legal Principle’

The ballot receptacles have been a bone of contention since their use exploded in the 2020 presidential election under the cover of Covid. Wisconsin counted more than 500 drop boxes in 430 communities in the closely contested election, with the heaviest concentration in major Democrat strongholds such as Milwaukee and Madison, according to AP. 

Their use was challenged, and in 2022 the conservative-led Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that most drop boxes aren’t permissible under state law. The 4-3 ruling found that the law demands absentee ballots be delivered in person by the voter to their local clerk’s office. The decision was in effect for the 2022 midterm election and, for the most part, absentee ballot drop boxes were not allowed. 

That changed in July thanks to liberals taking control of the court for the first time in 15 years. While the law had not changed, the state Supreme Court’s majority interpretation had.

“The majority in this case overrules [the 2022 decision] not because it is legally erroneous, but because the majority finds it politically inconvenient,” Justice Rebecca G. Bradley wrote in a dissenting opinion. “The majority’s activism marks another triumph of political power over legal principle in this court.”

Boxed In

The ruling gave Wisconsin communities the right to decide whether they want to use drop boxes or not, and where they want to place them. Many election offices have opted out. More than 60 local governments have decided against their use, All Voting is Local complained to CBS58 in Milwaukee. Four years ago, drop boxes were found in 66 of 72 counties, according to the news outlet. 

You’ll find the ballot receptacles in the usual suspect cities. Milwaukee will operate more than a dozen at the city’s library branches and elsewhere, according to the city.  

“In Milwaukee, all of the drop boxes are under 24-hour video surveillance. Pictures are taken before they are opened, after they are shut, and then there’s a documented chain of custody that is checked every step of the way,” Claire Woodall, senior advisor for leftist activist group Issue One, told Fox6. Interestingly, Woodall, who earlier this year was sent packing from her job as administrator of the Milwaukee Election Commission, had chain of custody troubles and other election integrity problems in her tenure leading election regulation. 

Issue One, by the way, “advocates for restricting election-related speech activity. It also seeks to restrict lobbying on local, state, and federal levels,” according to InfluenceWatch. 

“While it purports to be bipartisan and works with former centrist Republican lawmakers, the group is associated with the Democracy Alliance network of liberal mega-donors, which classifies Issue One as a “recommended organization,” the watchdog reports. 

Far-left Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway celebrated the liberal-led Supreme Court ruling reactivating absentee ballot drop boxes. In time for the August primary, Madison rolled out more than a dozen drop boxes at fire stations across the city. 

“I want to thank the State Supreme Court for recognizing that drop boxes are a safe and secure method of voting in Wisconsin,” said Mayor Rhodes-Conway at an Aug. 6 press conference.

Mixed Business 

In Wausau, the drop box won’t be available for the time being, but Bernarde told the Washington Post that voters may return absentee ballots in another box that is “normally used for payments to the city government.” 

Other Wisconsin communities reportedly are sharing collection resources. According to the Green Bay Press Gazette, at least five municipalities in the greater Green Bay area are allowing voters to drop off their absentee ballots in drop boxes used for city utility bills.  

“The utility bills and absentee ballots only come through the clerk’s office in these municipalities, according to their clerks, and are not directed elsewhere,” the news outlet reported. “The town of Lawrence has used its utility box before to accept absentee ballots, its clerk said. When voting drop boxes were made illegal, a sign above the box directed voters to not drop in ballots.” 

That would seem problematic, a potential ballot security risk. Is sharing drop boxes designed for other city business with ballots legal? Riley Vetterkind, spokesman for the Wisconsin Election Commission, did not make a judgment either way, according to the publication. That’s the kind of ambiguous election law guidance Wisconsinites have come to expect from its controversial elections regulator. 

“The guidance is less than helpful,” State. Sen. Andre Jacque, a Green Bay area Republican, told me in an interview Wednesday evening. 

Ashwaubenon Village Clerk Kris Teske said using other city collection boxes as ballot drop boxes raises chain of custody concerns. 

“We at the clerk’s office should be the only ones handling the ballots,” she said, noting she turned down the opportunity to employ mixed-use drop boxes for this election. “I know some places that have them where it comes into the clerk’s office, but I wouldn’t have complete control over that box. I have a process.” 

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.