The mayor of a central Wisconsin city who ran for office on his opposition to absentee ballot drop boxes said Wednesday he did nothing wrong when he put on work gloves, donned a hard, hat and used a dolly, to cart away a drop box outside City Hall. Wausau Mayor Doug Diny posed for a picture Sunday to memorialize his removal of the city's lone drop box, which had been put outside City Hall around the same time late last week that absentee ballots were sent to voters, the AP reports. The city's election clerk, Kaitlyn Bernarde, said she has reported the issue to the Marathon County district attorney as well as the state elections commission.
"This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there," Diny said Wednesday. "I'm a member of staff. There's nothing nefarious going on here. I'm hoping for a good result."
- The move, which sparked a protest in the city Tuesday night and anger among drop box advocates, is the latest example in swing state Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes.
- After former Donald Trump lost the state in 2020, he and some Republicans alleged that drop boxes facilitated cheating, even though they offered no evidence. Democrats, election officials, and other Republicans argued the boxes are secure. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, banned the use of drop boxes in 2022. But in July, the now-liberal controlled court reversed that decision and said drop boxes could be used. However, the court left it up to each community to decide whether to install them.
- More than 60 towns, villages, and cities in nine of the state's 72 counties have opted out of using absentee ballot drop boxes for the presidential election in November, according to a tally by the group All Voting is Local. Drop boxes are being embraced in heavily Democratic cities including Milwaukee and Madison.
- Diny ran as a conservative and was backed by the Republican Party in the nonpartisan mayor's race. He is in his first year as Wausau mayor after being elected in April. Diny said that he and the city clerk never discussed the drop box before it was placed outside City Hall late last week. Diny said he decided Sunday to act when he realized the drop box was "not secure."
- Bernarde said Wednesday that the city planned to "secure the drop box to the ground" and unlock it, but it was removed before that could be done. The box was locked and contained no ballots, she said. It is a felony in Wisconsin to impede or prevent "the free exercise of the franchise at an election."
- Wausau resident Pamela Bannister, speaking at a city council meeting Tuesday night, called for Diny to apologize and return the drop box. "This is the kind of action that's designed to stir the pot," Bannister said. "It does not tamp down the rhetoric that we're all facing in this election cycle. It accomplishes nothing positive and amounts to, in my estimation, voting interference and intimidation."
(More
drop box stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
