Two years after the state Supreme Court ruled that many unsupervised drop boxes for absentee ballots are illegal, Wisconsin's voters were told Friday that they can use them again. The decision is a victory for Democrats who maintain that the boxes make voting more accessible, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, and a defeat for Donald Trump and other Republicans who said—without citing evidence—that the boxes were enabling fraud. "Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes," the majority opinion reads. "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."
The justices voted 4-3, as they did last time. In between, the makeup of the court changed when Janet Protasiewicz was elected to replace a retiring conservative, Dan Kelly. Conservative justices argued when the court decided to take up the case that a different decision so close to the November election would cause chaos for officials and voters, per NPR. Their dissent Friday said the majority "again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda," per NBC News. The justices in the majority countered that the 2022 case was wrongly decided.
The original ruling applied to boxes anywhere other than at a clerk's office; the boxes now can be used across the state for the Aug. 13 primary as well as the fall election. Hundreds of absentee drop boxes had been added throughout Wisconsin in 2020, when more than 40% of the votes cast were absentee ballots. (More Wisconsin stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
