Madison — On Tuesday, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requested the Wisconsin Supreme Court to overturn a judgment banning absentee ballot drop boxes outside election clerks' offices in the presidential battleground state.
Evers sought the court to reverse a 2022 judgment that limited drop box locations on the day of Wisconsin's presidential primary. After losing the state in 2020, former President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that drop boxes caused voter fraud.
Conservative justices ruled Wisconsin's high court. It is now liberal, and last month the court agreed to reconsider the case brought by liberal voter mobilization group Priorities USA and the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Voters. Oral arguments are May 13.
Laws on drop boxes are silent in Wisconsin. Liberals say that makes community distribution legal. Evers said the 2022 court misread returning a ballot to an election clerk in his filing Tuesday.
The complaint claims that depositing a ballot in a municipal clerk's drop box is a personal delivery to the clerk, similar to dropping it in the mailbox without waiting for the postal service.
Wisconsin has utilized drop boxes for years, but the 2020 coronavirus epidemic made them popular. At least 500 drop boxes were installed in over 430 localities that year, including over a dozen in Madison and Milwaukee, the state's two biggest Democratic cities.
Wisconsin is one of several presidential battleground states, making its voting rules important. Four of the last six Wisconsin presidential elections, including the last two, were decided by less than 1%
According to the U.S. Vote Foundation, 29 states allow absentee ballot drop boxes outside election offices. “All across our country, election officials have chosen to use drop boxes to ensure that all eligible voters can freely cast their ballots,” Evers stated. "Drop box voting is safe and secure, and Wisconsin's election laws don't prohibit local clerks from using it."
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