Wisconsin Court Expands Access to Ballot Drop Boxes

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday issued a ruling that will allow officials in the state to widely utilize ballot drop boxes in the upcoming 2024 general election, reversing a decision the court made two years ago when conservatives held the majority, The Washington Post reports.

The court ruled 4-3, with the liberal members of the court in majority, to allow absentee ballots to be submitted via drop boxes placed by officials in their communities. The Wisconsin Supreme Court previously ruled in July 2022, when conservatives held the majority on the panel, not to allow drop boxes at any place other than local election clerks' offices and not to allow anyone other than the voter to turn in a ballot.

"Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes," Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote for the majority. "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."

Bradley wrote in the ruling: "The majority in this case overrules [the 2022 ruling] not because it is legally erroneous, but because the majority finds it politically inconvenient. The majority's activism marks another triumph of political power over legal principle in this court."

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Republican Party criticized the decision in a statement as a "setback" for the GOP.

"This latest attempt by leftist justices to placate their far-left backers will not go unanswered by voters," the spokesperson, Matt Fisher, added.

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