The debate over whether massive fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election will continue. But as many states have since overhauled their election laws and practices, there may be some outposts of questionable election rules that Democrats can still depend on. One of those places might just be Wisconsin.
On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned its own decision and ruled 4-3 that ballot drop boxes can be used in any location in the Badger state during the November presidential election. The court ruled in July of 2022 that the boxes could only be used in a limited capacity in places like local election clerks’ offices, and the voters themselves must be the ones to return the ballot. A conservative majority on the court at that time kept the use of drop boxes at bay.
But in April 2023, liberals took over the court. In February 2024, Priorities USA, a progressive voter mobilization group petitioned the court to revisit the ruling:
When your candidate needs a little help…. https://t.co/5zlss6nX3Z
— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) July 5, 2024
The issue of the use of ballot drop boxes seems to have been a contentious issue along ideological lines among the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices. When an announcement of the review of the ban came back in March, conservatives on the state’s highest court cried foul and accused liberal justices of trying to give Democrats an advantage. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers was also on board with the decision review.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, writing for the majority, stated that because ballot drop boxes are set up and maintained by local election officials, placing a ballot in a drop box is no different than handing a ballot to a local election clerk. Bradley also wrote:
“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes. It merely acknowledges what (state law) has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion.”
Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote for the dissenting conservative justices, saying bluntly,
“The majority in this case overrules (the 2022 decision) not because it is legally erroneous, but because the majority finds it politically inconvenient. The majority’s activism marks another triumph of political power over legal principle in this court.”
In the pandemic election year of 2020, at least a dozen ballot drop boxes were set up in Milwaukee and Madison, the state’s two most heavily Democrat cities, as well as in other areas around the state. The GOP-led state legislature made an unsuccessful attempt to intervene in the case, arguing that the 2022 decision should remain intact.
A spokesman for the Wisconsin Republican Party, Matt Fisher called the ruling a “setback.” He added, “This latest attempt by leftist justices to placate their far-left backers will not go unanswered by voters.” Scott McDonell the clerk for Dane County, Wisconsin’s most heavily Democrat county was, of course, on board with the decision and said the drop boxes were a “common sense tool,” and also said, “Having drop boxes in place for the 2024 elections in August and November will encourage civic participation in our democracy”:
Republicans need a reality check.
It doesn’t matter that the world is in chaos.
It doesn’t matter that Joe Biden is a cadaver.
The democrats have a machine; they just changed the rules on drop boxes in Wisconsin; and Joe Biden can very well win this November.
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) July 5, 2024
Wisconsin is one of a handful of crucial swing states that Democrats are looking to keep in the blue column. Currently, Donald Trump is ahead of Joe Biden by six points in a head-to-head general election match-up. Joe Biden heads to Wisconsin Friday for a campaign rally in Madison, and to also sit down with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos for an interview that could very well make or break his campaign. Calls for him to step aside are growing louder after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Watley released a statement on Friday calling Biden’s Wisconsin rally a “last-ditch effort before Republicans barnstorm Wisconsin”:
“Even vulnerable senator [sic] Tammy Baldwin doesn’t want to take part in Biden’s last-ditch effort to save face before the Republican National Convention. In just ten days, Republicans will hold a world-class convention to nominate the next President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, in Milwaukee. While Biden abandoned Wisconsin in 2020 and wrecked the state with historic inflation and deadly fentanyl, President Trump will restore our southern border, restore our economy, and restore America’s standing around the world.”
Between questions about Biden’s mental acuity and Donald Trump’s commanding lead in battleground states, Democrats are in a panic. The reinstatement of ballot drop boxes in one of those states is a win for Democrats, but it might not be enough, whether Joe Biden is the Democrat nominee or not. Will their return make the 2024 election ripe for voter fraud? One man’s fraud may be another’s “civic participation”:
Wisconsin’s newly liberal Supreme Court just opened the floodgates of election fraud
Time to install CCTV cameras at every drop box & have an election police task force ready to prosecute every ballot mule dropping off dozens of ballots
We know Dems are going to cheat
Stop em https://t.co/Mfd7BAXNkB
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 5, 2024
