Wisconsin Supreme Court Says Ballot Drop Boxes Can Again Be Used
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal majority said on Friday that ballot drop boxes can once again be used widely in the state, reversing a ruling issued two years ago when the court had a conservative majority.
On a practical level, the ruling changes how Wisconsin, a closely divided state that could tip the Electoral College, will carry out an election that is just four months away. On a symbolic level, the judicial U-turnis likely to fuel Republican claims that the court has become a nakedly partisan force — claims that Democrats made themselves not long ago, when most of the justices were conservatives.
Drop boxes were used in Wisconsin for years as one of several ways, along with early in-person and mail-in voting, for voters to submit ballots before Election Day. The widespread use of drop boxes in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, drew the ire of Republicans and prompted a lawsuit that the court’s previous majority decided by mostly banning their use.
“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal, wrote for the four-justice majority on Friday. “It merely acknowledges,” she added, what Wisconsin law “has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily conferred discretion.”
Her conservative colleague, Justice Rebecca Bradley, disagreed, writing in a dissent that “the majority again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda.”
The ruling on Friday is part of a broader push by Democrats and progressive groups to have the Wisconsin Supreme Court weigh in on some of the state’s thorniest policy issues. After liberals won a 4-to-3 majority last year, the court ordered the redrawing of state legislative district boundaries, which had long been gerrymandered to benefit Republicans. Earlier this week, the justices announced that they would hear a case that asks them to consider whether the State Constitution includes a right to abortion.
