The Wisconsin Supreme Court handed the Democrats a victory on Friday when it ruled that contentious ballot boxes could be used in the state and they wouldn’t be confined to select locations.
In a 4-3 ruling on Friday, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court reversed a 2022 decision that placed tighter restrictions on ballot drop boxes. The ruling responded to a lawsuit brought by Priorities USA, a liberal group that argues regulations on ballot boxes are an unnecessary barrier to voting.
At the time of the 2022 ruling, conservatives held the majority on the state’s highest court. Their decision ruled that absentee ballot boxes can only be placed in election offices, marking a departure from a policy allowing them to be placed at multiple locations.
The justices wrote that the state’s law does not explicitly authorize ballot boxes in locations other than election offices. The court also decided that no one other than the voter could return a ballot in person. Previously, the state allowed ballots to be returned by people other than the voter.
The court’s ruling two years ago came after former President Donald Trump alleged the state’s policy on ballot boxes facilitated cheating during the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. Trump lost the swing state to President Joe Biden by less than 1 percentage point.
“Between 3:30-4:30AM [election night] they ‘found’ 140,000 mail-in ballots for Biden in Wisconsin,” American conservative political commentator and author Nick Adams posted on X.
Democrats pushed back on the Trump team’s claims of fraud, saying that Milwaukee County’s reporting of 170,000 absentee votes, mostly cast for the Democratic candidate, explained the surge for Biden.
Friday’s decision to overturn the 2022 court’s ruling was possible after voters replaced a retiring conservative justice last year with a liberal. It marks a victory for the Democratic Party, which argues that loosening restrictions on ballot boxes would expand the ability of voters to exercise their constitutional rights.
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The GOP worries that the ruling allows “unstaffed” ballot boxes, blasting the ruling as “a setback for both the separation of powers and public trust in our elections.
“This latest attempt by leftist justices to placate their far-left backers will not go unanswered by voters,” Wisconsin GOP Chairman Brian Schimming warned in a statement on Friday.
