Wisconsin Supreme Court greenlights election fraud

MADISON, WI — The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Friday that absentee ballot drop boxes are allowed to be used in the state, reversing its own decision on the issue from two years ago.

In 2022, the court’s then-conservative majority court ruled in Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission that drop boxes weren’t allowed under state law and absentee ballots needed to be brought directly to municipal clerks.

Ballot drop boxes had been used in the state for decades prior to the decision, but became increasingly popular in 2020 as a way to safely vote during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, drop boxes became the target of conservatives, who argued they were vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

The court, which flipped to a liberal-majority when Justice Janet Protasiewicz was elected in 2023, decided to revisit the issue this year with a case filed by Priorities USA, a national non-profit group, and Democrats. In Friday’s ruling the new majority said they were overturning its previous decision because the ruling was “unsound in principle.”

The decision comes just a little over a month ahead of Wisconsin’s August primary elections.

The majority opinion’s author, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, wrote that the new decision “does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes. It merely acknowledges what [the statute] has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion.”

Conservatives on the court slammed the decision as an attempt for liberals to advance a political agenda. Justice Rebecca Bradley, writing in a dissent for the three conservative justices, compared the Friday decision to the court’s December 2023 decision to overturn the state’s legislative maps.

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