The Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 on Friday to restore the use of most ballot drop boxes in the crucial state, overturning a ruling less than two years ago that banned the use of most of them.
“Our decision today does not compel or require city officials to use drop boxes,” Friday’s decision said. “It merely recognizes … that officials may lawfully use secure drop boxes in an exercise of their legally granted discretion.”
While the ruling was largely expected after the court’s liberal justices made their stance on the issue clear during oral arguments in the case in May, it is likely to have major implications for the 2024 presidential election in this crucial battleground state, as it effectively authorizes the broad use of ballot drop boxes.
In 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Democrats widely encouraged voters to use the ballot boxes, and they are expected to do so again this fall.
On the other hand, many Republicans have falsely claimed that their use is linked to widespread voter fraud. But pending the ruling, some Republicans in the state are now encouraging voters to use ballot drop boxes this fall.
Friday’s decision marks the latest chapter in an ever-changing story in a crucial swing state.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which oversees elections in the state, approved funding in 2020 for the expanded use of drop boxes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in a case brought by conservative groups, the state Supreme Court ruled in July 2022 that Wisconsin voters who cast their ballots by mail could no longer place them in ballot drop boxes, except in the offices of election workers. It ruled that only the GOP-controlled state legislature — not the Wisconsin Elections Commission — has the authority to enact laws and policies regarding mail-in ballot drop boxes.
After liberals regained the court majority in 2023, the Democratic group Priorities USA filed a lawsuit explicitly asking to overturn the 2022 ruling limiting the use of drop boxes and other rules and restrictions on mail-in voting. (After a Wisconsin court narrowed the case, the group appealed directly to the state Supreme Court, bypassing the lower appeals courts.)
The group had argued that the 2022 ruling was wrong because Wisconsin law is silent on the issue of drop boxes. While the group acknowledged that Wisconsin law makes it clear that ballots must be returned by mail or in person, they raised the question in the case that it remained unclear whether voters can drop off ballots in person at locations other than a clerk’s office.
The four liberal justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to hear the case, agreeing only to decide whether the ruling was incorrect, but not to discuss other issues raised in the case.
Democrats and progressives in the state have filed numerous briefs calling on the court to overturn the 2022 decision, while conservative groups and the Republican Party of Wisconsin have filed multiple briefs supporting upholding the current rules regarding drop boxes.
However, Friday’s ruling could give a boost to Republicans’ efforts to embrace mail boxes in Wisconsin.
In the years following the 2020 election, the use of ballot drop boxes for mail-in voting was repeatedly criticized by former President Donald Trump and his allies, who falsely claimed that the practice led to widespread election fraud in 2020.
But in recent months, there has been a continued shift in attitudes toward early and alternative voting within the GOP nationally, including from Trump himself, who has begun to soften his stance.
NBC News reported in May that the Wisconsin GOP would launch an effort to encourage voters to use drop boxes in this year’s presidential election if the state Supreme Court rules to reinstate them — despite having heavily criticized the voting method in the past — while also making plans to deploy volunteers to guard drop boxes in heavily Democratic areas.
Friday’s ruling was not entirely unexpected.
The four liberal justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court repeatedly indicated during oral arguments in May that they believed the court had incorrectly ruled on the issue 22 months earlier, with many noting that state law is silent on the specific issue of drop boxes. Liberal justices on the bench used their speaking time to reject false claims by conservatives that the use of such boxes was a source of fraud in past elections. (There is no evidence that fraud or abuse occurred in the use of drop boxes during Wisconsin’s 2020 election.)
Meanwhile, conservatives in the state criticized the court for rehearing the case so soon after the ruling, arguing that it invoked the doctrine of stare decisis — the legal concept that justices must largely defer to legal precedent when formulating and writing opinions.
But liberal justices on the court explicitly rejected those claims during oral arguments, specifically pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined a federal right to abortion for decades.
“‘Roe was terribly wrong from the beginning. The reasoning was exceptionally weak and the decision had damaging consequences,'” Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky said as she read a sentence from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
“What are we supposed to do here, if we believe that Teigen was flagrantly wrong from the beginning, that the reasoning was exceptionally weak, and that the decision had damaging consequences,” she said. The name of the 2022 case decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court is Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Karofsky was one of three liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justices who dissented from the original ruling in 2022.
Janet Protasiewicz, who won the 2023 election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, securing a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years, joined the three candidates in the majority decision on Friday.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
