{"id":12371,"date":"2024-08-28T05:03:26","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T05:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12371"},"modified":"2024-08-28T05:56:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T05:56:09","slug":"wisconsin-communities-say-no-to-ballot-drop-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=12371","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Communities Say No to Ballot Drop Boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-communities-say-no-to-ballot-drop-boxes\/tcsquare\/2024\/08\/28\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Therese Boudreaux<\/h5>\n

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City councils in two Waukesha County municipalities, Brookfield and New Berlin, have voted to ban the use of ballot drop boxes in their cities for the upcoming general election, following a state Supreme Court ruling that reinstated municipalities\u2019 right to utilize the equipment.<\/p>\n

Brookfield justified its decision last week to ban drop boxes by arguing they are unnecessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike 2020 and 2021, Covid is no longer the threat to public health that it once was, and the City is not subject to any stay-at-home or mask orders,\u201d Brookfield City Attorney Jenna Merten wrote in a\u00a0memo<\/a>, adding that the city still provides ample services like extended hours for in-person absentee voting and a drive-up ballot drop off for disabled voters. \u201cWith such provisions in place, we do not think a drop box is necessary at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merten also said the decision will save city election workers valuable time and resources, since staff will not have to deal with \u201ckeeping drop box chain-of-custody logs, maintaining camera surveillance, and having employees use additional security measures for the drop box.\u201d<\/p>\n

Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Nick Ramos disagreed, arguing the decisions are a disservice to voters and that drop boxes do not pose a security concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are a means to being able to help people that actually need them, like the elderly, the disabled, the single parents,\u201d Ramos said. \u201cPeople are looking to be able to use the drop boxes and they\u2019re not using them in nefarious ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brookfield\u2019s attorney did add in the memo that its recommendation might change, \u201cdepending on factors, such as pandemics, poll worker availability, court rulings, and other circumstances that are unforeseeable at the time of this memo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Use of drop boxes increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to both concerns about election security and calls for their permanent use in future elections.<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s 4-3\u00a0ruling in July<\/a>\u00a0concluded that municipalities and counties are not obligated to use ballot drop boxes, but are allowed to do so, reversing the court\u2019s previous decision banning drop boxes following the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes,\u201d Justice Ann Walsh Bradley wrote. \u201cIt merely acknowledges what has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two Wisconsin lawmakers have\u00a0introduced legislation<\/a>\u00a0that would require 24\/7 video surveillance of ballot drop boxes wherever they are used in the state.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Th\u00e9r\u00e8se is an apprentice reporter covering Michigan and Wisconsin for The Center Square<\/a>, under the mentorship of Midwest Regional Editor J.D. Davidson. Her work focuses on election-related news in these two states. Previously, she interned at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se graduated with a major in politics from Hillsdale College in May of 2024, where she produced award-winning radio journalism.
\nPhoto \u201cBallot Drop Box\u201d by Chris Phan<\/a>. CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The post Wisconsin Communities Say No to Ballot Drop Boxes<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/wisconsin-communities-say-no-to-ballot-drop-boxes\/tcsquare\/2024\/08\/28\/ by Therese Boudreaux \u00a0 City councils in two Waukesha…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12372,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12371\/revisions\/12372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}