Absentee Ballot Drop Boxes Reinstated In Swing State

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to restore the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the critical swing state ahead of the 2024 elections.

The battleground state’s liberal-controlled Supreme Court overturned a prior decision to ban the use of most drop boxes.

“The newly liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to reinstate the use of drop boxes across the state. I tried to warn people. No one listened,” Scott Presler said.

The newly liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to reinstate the use of drop boxes across the state.

I tried to warn people.

No one listened. pic.twitter.com/ZdjZxU0QZg

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) July 5, 2024

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

The 4-3 decision was a win for Democrats who argued the longstanding practice of allowing voters to file ballots into the locked, unmanned boxes made voting more accessible. That process, however, was highly criticized in 2020 by former President Donald Trump and Republicans who claimed without evidence that the boxes and absentee voting were rife with 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,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote in the majority opinion.

Friday’s decision means election clerks across Wisconsin can use the ballot drop boxes during the Aug. 13 partisan primaries and the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, wrote in the dissent that the liberal majority “again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda,” citing the court’s previous ruling tossing the state’s electoral maps.

“July 2022, The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that absentee drop boxes are ILLEGAL in the state. The court said drop boxes can only be placed INSIDE election offices,” MJTruthUltra wrote.

“That has now changed.. and they will be placed everywhere again… —— the Wisconsin Supreme Court, just yesterday, reinstated the use of ballot drop boxes in the state,” he added.

“This is a video compilation of Detroit’s satellite voting centers before the November 2020 election. Individuals and sometimes teams of people caught on camera depositing STACKS of ballots into those boxes… those Ballots were counted. No arrests,” he continued.

WATCH:

Here we go again… so sick of this..

The Wisconsin Supreme Court Reinstated the Decision to Allow Ballot Drop Boxes in the State

• July 2022, The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that absentee drop boxes are ILLEGAL in the state. The court said drop boxes can only be placed… pic.twitter.com/Xkk8GgJLwi

— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) July 5, 2024

BREAKING: In a 4-3 decision today, Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstates the use of most ballot drop boxes across the state, overturning a decision it made less than two years ago that banned the use of most of those boxes. pic.twitter.com/yT0wJlRO0I

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) July 5, 2024

Per NBC News:

After liberals won back the court majority in 2023, however, the Democratic group Priorities USA filed a suit explicitly seeking to overturn the 2022 ruling curtailing the use of drop boxes, as well as other rules and restrictions regarding absentee voting. (After a Wisconsin trial court narrowed the suit, the group appealed directly to the state Supreme Court, skipping over lower appeals courts.)

The group had argued that the 2022 ruling was incorrectly decided due to the fact that Wisconsin law is silent on the issue of drop boxes. While the group has acknowledged that Wisconsin laws do make clear that absentee ballots must be returned by mail or in person, they raised the question in the case that it remained unclear whether voters can return absentee ballots in person to locations other than a clerk’s office.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s four liberal justices voted to accept the case, agreeing only to resolve whether the ruling was incorrectly decided but not any other issues raised in the suit.

Democrats and progressives in the state filed numerous briefs urging the court to overturn its 2022 decision, while conservative groups and the Wisconsin Republican Party filed several briefs in support of upholding the current rules regarding drop boxes.

Friday’s ruling may, however, accelerate Republican efforts to embrace drop boxes in Wisconsin.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.