The mayor of Wisconsin removes an absentee ballot collection box, asserting his innocent actions.
Wausau's Mayor Doug Diny snapped a photo on Sunday to commemorate his relocation of the city's lone drop box, which had been positioned outside City Hall just as absentee ballots were distributed to voters around the same time the previous week.
"This is just like the facility staff moving it out there," Diny mentioned during a Wednesday discussion. "I'm an employee here. There's no shady business going on here. I'm hoping for a positive outcome."
Diny ran under the conservative label and received support from the Republican Party in the nonpartisan mayor's contest. He started his tenure as Wausau mayor in April, following his election in the spring.
The action, igniting a protest in the city on Tuesday night and sparking outrage among drop box supporters, is the latest instance in Wisconsin of the contest over whether cities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes.
Several GOP-led municipalities, like six in Milwaukee County, two in Waukesha County, and three in Dodge County, opted against utilizing drop boxes for the November presidential election, while they have gained popularity in heavily Democratic cities including Milwaukee and Madison.
Drop boxes were extensively used in 2020, spurred by a significant surge in absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At least 500 drop boxes were established in more than 430 communities for that election, including over a dozen each in Madison and Milwaukee. Drop boxes were employed in 39 other states during the 2022 election, according to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
Following former President Donald Trump's defeat in 2020, he and other Republicans alleged that drop boxes facilitated fraud, despite the absence of proof. Democrats, election officials, and some Republicans stated that the boxes are secure.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, which was under conservative control in 2022, prohibited the use of drop boxes.
However, in July, the now liberally-controlled court reversed its decision and granted communities the authority to use drop boxes. Nevertheless, each community was responsible for determining whether to install them.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission sent a June guideline to all 1,800-plus clerks responsible for administering elections in Wisconsin, encouraging municipal clerks to determine the location of drop boxes.
Wausau, with a population of approximately 40,000, did not utilize an absentee drop box during the August state primary. Wausau is situated in Marathon County, which Trump won by 18 points in both 2016 and 2020.
Diny suggested that he and City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde had not discussed the drop box before its deployment outside City Hall late last week. Diny stated that he acted on Sunday when he discovered that the drop box was "not secure."
Bernarde did not respond to email or voice message requests for comment on Wednesday.
Diny expressed his desire for the city council to be involved in any decisions regarding the drop box. Had the city council voted to place the drop box outside, Diny claimed he would not have had the power to relocate it.
Though Diny stated that he generally opposes drop boxes, he also indicated that he would not take a stance on whether it should remain in place for ballots that could be returned until Election Day.
"At this moment," Diny mentioned, "I don't have a stake in the game. I want it to be done correctly, with the appropriate input and approval of citizens."
It is a felony in Wisconsin to obstruct or hinder "the free exercise of the franchise at an election." The Wisconsin Elections Commission urged clerks to contact law enforcement if someone attempted to tamper with a drop box or impeded its use.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission offers a range of recommendations to ensure the safety of drop boxes not situated inside buildings, such as installing video surveillance, securing the drop boxes, situating them in well-lit areas, and establishing a clear chain of custody for ballot retrieval. The Wausau drop box was under video surveillance but had not yet been secured with bolts.
Diny asserted that he had not committed any wrongdoing. The city attorney, Anne Jacobson, did not return calls seeking comment on Wednesday.
"If someone had taken it and driven it away," Diny said, "the police would be looking for them for property theft." The drop box is secure within City Hall, he argued, until the matter is resolved.
Wausau resident Pamela Bannister, delivering remarks during a city council meeting on Tuesday night, urged Diny to apologize and reinstall the drop box.
"This is the kind of act intended to stir up trouble," Bannister mentioned. "It does not reduce the rhetoric we're all facing in this election cycle. It accomplishes nothing beneficial and amounts to, in my opinion, voting interference and intimidation."
The discussion about the relocation of the drop box has brought up concerns about the politics surrounding absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin. Diny's actions have sparked controversy and have been seen as an attempt to influence the use of drop boxes in the city.
