Wisconsin drop boxes; the history, drama behind controversial method

History of drop boxes

MILWAUKEE - They are designed only to receive absentee ballots, but ballot drop boxes have been taking a lot of heat too.

State law defines voting as a "constitutional right," but it says absentee voting is a "privilege" that must be "carefully regulated." That privilege goes back to 1862.

Then-Gov. Edward Salomon argued tens of thousands of men shouldn't lose their right to vote while serving in the Civil War. So, just in time for the 1864 presidential election, Wisconsin became the second state in the union to pass a law allowing soldiers to vote outside the polling place. High-ranking officers took a tally of eligible voters and dispatched the results back to be counted.

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The process looks a little different 162 years later - with the help of drop boxes.

Political scientists tell FOX6 their use dates back to the 1980s, though the City of Milwaukee said it first used the boxes in 2020.

Drop boxes are one of four ways absentee voters can send their ballots back to be counted, if their city, town or village opts to use them. Only municipal clerks can decide whether to deploy drop boxes. The other three ballot return options are by mail, directly to the clerk's office, or at a poll.

Should a clerk decide to use them, it's their job to set up the box, maintain it, secure it and empty it before counting the ballots on Election Day.

Ballot drop box use exploded in 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wisconsin Elections Commission encourages clerks to use 'creative solutions' to repurpose areas as absentee ballot drop boxes. So, things like mail slots for tax payments and library drop slots for books started to double as drop boxes.

To put it in perspective, 27% of all votes cast in Wisconsin were absentee in 2016. In 2020, it jumped to nearly 60%.

The elections commission counted more than 500 drop boxes in 2020.

Now, the commission's only aware of 78, and the cities of Madison and Milwaukee have 14 each.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit All Voting is Local said more than 60 municipalities have opted not to use them. The list includes Ashippun, Bayside, the Town of Beaver Dam, Brookfield, Fox Point, Glendale, Hales Corners, Hustisford, New Berlin, River Hills and St. Francis.

Drop box drama

And that's after a pair of Wisconsin Supreme Court rulings focused on drop boxes. In November 2022, the conservative-held court ruled them unconstitutional.

But in July, the court reversed that ruling under a new liberal majority.

Both court opinions focused on a specific part of the law, debating whether a voter has to submit their ballot directly to the municipal clerk or if a box still checks that box.

Away from a line of early voters, the drop box at Milwaukee's Good Hope Library is one of 14 in use across the city.

"We have not had any issues with drop boxes thus far," said Paulina Gutierrez with the Milwaukee Election Commission.

They're back in cities, towns and villages whose clerks decide to use them or not. After the Wisconsin Supreme Court weighed in twice since the 2020 presidential election, that's when the controversy really began.

President Donald Trump cast doubt on the integrity of votes cast and returned through drop boxes.

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It's a stance that lacks proof, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus Howard Schweber.

"There is no evidence that anyone has ever tried to stuff drop boxes with fake ballots or multiple ballots or noncitizens' ballots, and there's no evidence that improper ballots that get into drop boxes end up being counted as votes," Schweber said.

After Trump lost Wisconsin, his campaign challenged our state's results, arguing the use of drop boxes was illegal.

"They've been in use since the '80s and fairly widely used in Wisconsin since the '90s," Schweber said. "Certainly during the pandemic, a great number of them were suddenly pressed into service, because there was a pandemic."

The courts confirmed Wisconsin's results. But in 2022, the conservative-majority state Supreme Court ruled they were unconstitutional.

That held until July of this year when the supreme court, now with a progressive majority, reversed that decision and allowed the boxes to be used. And the surrounding controversy continues.

In September, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny shared a photo of himself removing the drop box outside Wausau's city hall.

Though he returned the box the next day, the Wisconsin Department of Justice is now investigating him for election fraud.