The fight over ballots has already begun in Wisconsin

WEST BEND, Wis. — Karen Cannestra does not like that drop box in front of West Bend City Hall.

Cannestra, 72 and retired, prefers to vote at her polling place in Wisconsin on Election Day, the way it was always done. It goes beyond personal preference, she says. Who knows the motives of the person who's pulling those ballots out at the end of the day? Couldn't somebody tamper with the process?

Isn't that exactly what happened in 2020, she asked, when, she felt, the election was stolen?

"I don't trust it, the drop box," Cannestra said, before walking into City Hall to pay a utility bill. "No, no, no."

Many Republican voters still believe former President Donald Trump's baseless claim that he won the presidential election in 2020. In Wisconsin, they are taking those fears over election fraud and directing them at the dozens of ballot drop boxes across the state, though there weren't any major problems with voter fraud there in 2020.

Drop boxes, which had been used for years in Wisconsin until they were mostly banned after the claims of fraud, are back, and they have become the subject of bitter debate. City Council and county board meetings in the state have been consumed with battles over the boxes in recent days, a glimpse of what could soon be a repeat of 2020: the results of a legitimate presidential election being questioned and rejected by a wide swath of Americans.

In the central Wisconsin city of Wausau, Mayor Doug Diny stoked fears over drop boxes in September by personally removing one that had yet to be fully installed. Last week at a City Council meeting, one Wausau resident insisted that she had seen drop boxes covertly stuffed with ballots on four different occasions when she was living in Colorado four years ago. Another man said that he believed there was "corruption" on the City Council over the issue and that the city clerk, who has local authority over drop boxes, was not doing her job.

"I think it's absolutely appalling what's going on in our community," he said.

In suburban Milwaukee last week, the Washington County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $3,000 for video surveillance of drop boxes, should municipal clerks need the funds to tighten security.

Some officials went even further.

"Every citizen should have access to livestream of the camera and instructions for how to proceed if they see something suspicious," said one supervisor, Linda Gurath.

Another supervisor, Tina Pridemore, wondered if someone could shove 20 ballots into a box at once, and said that she knew people who were willing to volunteer to stand near the drop boxes "to make sure that we're not having this illegal voting," she said.

Beleaguered city clerks, nonpartisan officials who are responsible for deciding whether their municipalities should have drop boxes, have tried to reassure the public that the boxes are perfectly secure.

Around the state, some drop boxes are free-standing, bolted to the ground like mailboxes outside City Hall or on street corners. Others are built into the walls of municipal buildings, allowing voters to drop absentee ballots through a slot and directly inside, where they are then collected by workers and locked in a vault until Election Day. As of Wednesday, at least 78 boxes were in use, election officials said.

In Wisconsin, any registered voter may choose to request an absentee ballot without providing a reason, and hundreds of thousands of people usually vote using absentee ballots, which can be returned in person or in the mail.

In Eau Claire, the drop box has a padlock, said Kristina Kuzma, the city clerk. "When we close it, we put a tamper-evident seal every time. We empty it once a day. We have two people go out and empty it together," she said.

"We work really hard to be nonpolitical and to stay out of politics as much as we possibly can," Kuzma added. "We just administer the election fairly."

Lori Stottler, the clerk-treasurer in Janesville, said she checks the box at least four times a day to collect ballots.

"People have said things like, people can do X or Y to it, they could attempt to commit crimes," she said.

Though they were used without controversy even before 2020, drop boxes gained popularity during that presidential election, which was held during the pandemic. By spring 2021, 570 drop boxes had been placed in nearly all of Wisconsin's 72 counties, according to a state Supreme Court document.

Then Republicans filed a lawsuit challenging their use, and the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by conservative justices at the time, decided in 2022 to mostly ban them.

This summer, under a state Supreme Court with a newly liberal majority, the court reversed the ruling. Drop boxes were back, should city clerks decide to use them.

Meagan Wolfe, the state's chief election official, said Wednesday that voters "should have a great deal of confidence that that is a secure option."

Wisconsin has a heavily decentralized election model, with more than 1,800 municipal clerks who administer local elections. Some clerks have cited the convenience that drop boxes offer for people who would prefer to not return their ballot in the mail, or voters who drop off ballots in the evening hours, on their way home from work.

Many conservatives in Wisconsin have since denounced the boxes and praised towns that have not used them.

At a rally in Dodge County this month, Sheriff Dale Schmidt took the stage, turning to address Trump, who was campaigning there.

"I have something very important I think you're going to want to hear," Schmidt said. "In Dodge County, in this 2024 election, there are zero drop boxes for the election."

As the crowd erupted in cheers, Trump gave a double thumbs-up.

"We're going to make sure that we have the best, most secure election in Dodge County history," Schmidt said.

(Schmidt was wrong about the number of drop boxes; several municipalities in Dodge County have them, as clerks pointed out last week.)

Some clerks have opted to use the boxes. In Racine in southeastern Wisconsin, seven of them are in use. In Kenosha, which is roughly the same size as Racine and also in the southeastern part of the state, there are none.

Michelle L. Nelson, the Kenosha city clerk and treasurer, said that she decided not to use a drop box, and instead expanded early voting hours.

"I know that some people think that they aren't secure," she said. "On the other side, there have been people who have asked, how can I as a clerk make sure that there isn't intimidation?" Nelson added, envisioning a scenario where people could position themselves near the drop box and ask voters if the ballot was actually theirs.

Some Republican officials said they have tried to persuade voters to not worry about the security of ballot drop boxes.

Stephanie Soucek, chair of the Republican Party of Door County in northeastern Wisconsin, said she has tried to tamp down fears.

There is a drop box in the county seat of Sturgeon Bay, a city of 10,000 people, which Soucek says is safe and secure.

"I'm encouraging people that they can trust this process," she said. "I feel like Republican voters have slowly come on board with the idea. It's just taking time."

At public meetings, residents have also spoken up in favor of drop boxes, arguing that trying to remove them is a form of voter suppression.

"Making it harder to vote is out of touch with Wisconsin values," Nancy Stencil of Wausau said at a City Council meeting last week.

Inside West Bend City Hall, Jilline Dobratz, the city clerk, said she has encountered voters who return ballots in person and slide them across the counter, underneath a wall of plexiglass.

"'Make sure it counts,'" they sometimes tell her, Dobratz said.

"It's tough to hear those things because I've been doing this over 11 years, I have many clerk friends and we work hard," she said. "When people say negative things, it's hard not to take it all personal."