Wisconsin’s liberal-controlled Supreme Court reinstated the use of absentee ballot drop boxes on Friday, ahead of the upcoming elections. This decision overturns a previous ruling by the court.
The 4-3 ruling marks a victory for Democrats who argued that drop boxes, which allow voters to submit ballots into unmanned containers, increase accessibility. This practice faced warranted criticism in 2020 from President Trump and Republicans, who pointed out that drop boxes and absentee voting were prone to fraud.
“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes. It merely acknowledges what (state law) has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion,” wrote Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in the majority opinion.
With this ruling, election clerks across Wisconsin can utilize ballot drop boxes for the Aug. 13 partisan primaries and the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, dissented, criticizing the liberal majority for abandoning the rule of law to further a political agenda. She referenced the court’s previous decision that invalidated the state’s electoral maps, stating, “The majority ends the term by loosening the legislature’s regulations governing the privilege of absentee voting in the hopes of tipping the scales in future elections.”
The recent decision reverses the July 2022 ruling by the court’s then-conservative majority, which declared ballot drop boxes illegal unless located at election clerk offices. Democrats had challenged the ban shortly before the court shifted to liberal control, arguing that drop boxes were essential for voters facing disabilities, scheduling conflicts, lack of transportation, or other hardships.
In 2020, hundreds of drop boxes were installed across Wisconsin, with over 40% of all votes cast via absentee ballots. In September 2020, Milwaukee installed 15 unstaffed absentee ballot drop boxes using a $70,000 grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. After the 2020 election, Republicans criticized the private funding granted to larger, Democratic-leaning cities.
The city’s drop boxes had been locked and inaccessible since the state Supreme Court's ban two years ago. Following this week’s ruling, cities with remaining drop boxes will likely reopen them quickly for the August primaries.
The court’s conservative justices, in their original ban, argued that state law only permits drop boxes at election clerk offices and maintained that the Republican-controlled state Legislature should be responsible for forming policies regarding the use of drop boxes, not the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
