Wisconsin Republicans introducing new bill to ban absentee ballot drop boxes

Conservative state Supreme Court justices banned drop boxes in 2022, but they were restored when the court came under liberal control in 2024.

Assembly Republicans are circulating a bill for cosponsorship that would ban all future use of absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin, seeking to remove a secure option for voting that Republicans and Democrats used for years until President Donald Trump falsely claimed they were used to alter election results.

The eight Republicans behind the bill used language similar to Trump’s in their cosponsorship memo, as posted by WisPolitics.

“Wisconsin’s voters deserve to have trust in the mechanisms and processes our state employs in conducting its elections,” the lawmakers wrote. “The use of ballot drop boxes for returning completed absentee ballots has neither a sound basis in state statute nor does it reassure voters that their elections are being conducted securely.” 

In fact, there have been no issues with drop box security in Wisconsin. The only incident related to drop box use happened when Wausau mayor and drop box opponent Doug Diny unilaterally removed a box outside of City Hall that was not yet in use for the 2024 presidential election. 

Absentee ballot drop boxes were initially banned in 2022 when conservative justices controlled the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The justices claimed there was not an explicit statute authorizing them. But the case was revisited and overturned last year after liberals won a majority on the court. In the new ruling, the liberal majority  said state statute gives municipal election clerks wide latittude in deciding how to administer elections, including the option to use drop boxes.

Republican lawmakers claim it was a political judgment. 

“With the new liberal majority on the Supreme Court being in the habit of acting as a super-legislature, the justices overturned the correct 2022 decision in order to conveniently reinstate drop boxes prior to the 2024 general election,” they wrote. “This bill, in order to clear up any confusion, outlaws the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in any and all elections conducted in Wisconsin.”

Republicans had long been supportive of using drop boxes and absentee ballots, seeing them as ways to encourage voter turnout in rural areas where they traditionally do well. But in keeping with Trump’s wishes, Republican-controlled state legislatures have pushed to obstruct or outlaw ways to make voting more convenient, such as reducing the window for returning mail ballots, banning or limiting drop boxes, and criminalizing third-party ballot collection.

The new bill introduced in Wisconsin would face a certain veto from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.