Election officials in Wisconsin are pushing back against the narrative that ballot drop boxes are fraudulent in a state that has been embroiled in this debate since the 2020 election.
During the 2020 election, allies of former President Donald Trump promoted baseless claims that ballot drop boxes were not secure and urged their voters to only vote in person on Election Day. Drop boxes wound up in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which originally outlawed them in 2022, but the newly liberal-leaning court overturned that ruling in 2024, giving them the green light ahead of the November election.
“Wisconsin’s used ballot boxes for decades and decades,” Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairwoman Ann Jacobs told ABC News.
Election officials are now trying to set the record straight about their safety.
“We have specially trained ballot courier teams [and] we have a pretty strong chain of custody,” Paulina Gutierrez, the new election administrator for Milwaukee, told the outlet.”We are following the best practices that have been provided by national and federal partners and also following the guidance of the Wisconsin Election Commission.”
Gutierrez said every ballot box has a camera and that when ballots are dropped off, they are taken to an operations center to ensure they are legitimate. “If at any point some of that stuff isn’t adding up, it won’t be counted,” she said.
“Unfortunately, some communities have fallen prey to the conspiracy theories surrounding drop boxes and have elected not to use them,” Jacobs said. “I say unfortunately because drop boxes are a safe, easy, and effective way to transmit your ballot directly from you, the voter, to your clerk.”
Drop boxes are heavily embraced throughout the state’s Democratic strongholds in Dane and Milwaukee counties, but they are hardly utilized in Republican-heavy municipalities. Six Republican-led municipalities in Milwaukee County, two in Waukesha County, and three in Dodge County opted not to use ballot drop boxes, according to CNN.
Last month, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny, a Republican, removed one drop box from City Hall, prompting an investigation from the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Diny claimed he did nothing wrong by removing the ballot drop box, which he said he moved because it was not secure on the sidewalk.
“This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,” Diny said on the matter. “I’m a member of staff. There’s nothing nefarious going on here.”
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled this year that only city clerks have the right to choose whether to use a drop box. The mayor does not have that authority.
In Wausau, the drop box has since been returned and is now bolted to the ground outside City Hall.