Wisconsin Supreme Court rules absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MADISON - Voters casting absentee ballots this fall for the highest state offices won't be able to return their ballots in upcoming elections by using drop boxes following a ruling Friday by the Wisconsin Supreme Court's conservative majority. The 4-3 ruling is a win for Republicans who oppose the longstanding use of ballot drop boxes after the coronavirus pandemic pushed election officials to promote their use to limit contact, concerns that were buoyed by false claims of voter fraud from former President Donald Trump after he lost re-election in 2020.
The state's highest court also upheld a Waukesha County court's ruling that required absentee ballots to be delivered by mail or returned personally. The ruling did not determine whether voters can have a family member or friend drop their ballots in the mail — a restriction some Wisconsin voters with significant physical disabilities feared would prevent them from casting ballots in future elections.
Poll workers typically visit nursing homes to assist residents vote. Clerks allow curbside voting for people who can’t get out of their cars. In some cases, postal workers will pick up and deliver mail to someone's door instead of a mailbox at the end of a driveway if the recipient has a medical condition. Those policies help some voters but not everyone.
The underlying dispute over voting policies began last year, when the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed the lawsuit on behalf of two suburban Milwaukee men. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren ruled in their favor in January and ordered the state elections commission to revoke advice it issued in 2020. He determined that state law didn’t allow the use of unstaffed ballot drop boxes and didn’t allow voters to give their completed absentee ballots to someone else to return for them.
Read more: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/07/08/wisconsin-supreme-court-rules-absentee-ballot-dropboxes-illegal/7829047001/
= new reply since forum marked as read
written permission from Mike DeJoy. His office will be closed until after the mid-term elections take place though.
Here in NC, Republicans spent a decade telling older voters to request ballots and mail them in - "It's easy, secure, and convenient" they said! The over-65 demographic in NC has historically used vote-by-mail the most (and they're also a Republican-leaning group).
Then 2020 happened, and suddenly voting by mail was "fraudulent" and the Republicans in charge of NC were ranting and raving about it, while still promoting it to their own voters!
Anything they do to restrict voting by mail will ultimately backfire on them. So be it 
So the Supreme Court for each state can only look at the law that's enacted for their state. It doesn't matter whether mailed ballots are allowed in other states, they're not allowed to consider that. Some states are fine with the locked drop-off boxes, others aren't.
is what they call "explicit" (spelled out) vs "implicit" (implied/assumed through other means) interpretations.
People complain about the sheer (essentially obscene) amount of "regulations" because too much stuff "is spelled out" and that is often due to this problem of challenging whether something is explicitly legal or not. There are literally volumes and volumes, rack after rack after rack that make up the Code of Federal Regulations, that contain the whats and whys and hows for Departments and Agencies to refer to when applying the law -
They now maintain them online (and they were going through digitizing about 60 years worth of older volumes back in 2015) although if an agency orders hard copies, they'll ship out the printed volumes.
The same usually happens at the state, county, and municipal levels.
So for example in the past with Roe, the courts found the implicit right to privacy (4th Amendment) applied and last month decided to ditch that and instead wants lots and lots of writing.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment
For voting, some of it is in the various Voting Rights Acts including HAVA (Help America Vote Act that allowed for provisional ballots for example), but again, more writing apparently needed.
When will the court make "unstaffed USPS drop boxes" illegal? Other than outside markings, they look alike.
unless wisconsin republicons enjoy being told what to do ("thank you sir, may i have another"
they should vote their fuckers out too
