MILWAUKEE - The Wisconsin Supreme Court on ruled Friday, July 8 that unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal in the state.
The court also ruled that one person cannot drop off another person's ballot.The ruling means absentee ballot drop boxes will stay shut down.
Milwaukee's 15 drop boxes remain covered, as they have been since the Wisconsin Supreme Court allowed a lower court's ruling to take effect in the spring.In 2020, Wisconsin housed at least 528 absentee ballot drop boxes in both majority Democratic and majority Republican areas.
During that first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wisconsin Elections Commission offered clerks guidance on the use of drop boxes.SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 NewsThe Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a conservative law firm, sued – arguing the drop boxes broke a state law that reads: "The envelope shall be mailed by the elector, or delivered in person, to the municipal clerk.""In the same way we don’t want referees to change the pass interference rules in the middle of a football game, we don’t want departure by unelected bureaucrats from the rules that the legislature specified should govern our elections," WILL's Rick Esenberg said in an interview.Disability Rights Wisconsin defends the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, arguing they helped people with disabilities cast votes safely and securely."People want to know their vote counts, and if it’s too close to the election, people are uncomfortable relying on the mail.