There are many Americans who believe that there were a lot of weird anomalies during the 2020 election. Many of those anomalies had to do with absentee ballots and ballot harvesting. Ballot harvesting will still be legal in some states in 2024; and hopefully, Republicans will be able to use it effectively. Some of the problems with absentee ballots will probably still exist.
On September 23rd, The Right Scoop reported the following:
The state of Wisconsin will no longer be able to use absentee ballot drop boxes as they did three years using COVID as an excuse.
The conservative majority of the state’s high court ruled that the boxes are illegal and that when someone delivers an absentee ballot to the clerk’s office, it must be done by the voter and not someone else.
The article quotes Wisconsin Public Radio:
Absentee ballot drop boxes won’t be allowed in Wisconsin under a ruling handed down Friday by a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The court’s conservative majority also ruled that it’s illegal for someone else, like a spouse or roommate, to return a voter’s completed absentee ballot to the clerk’s office. The voter must carry out that task personally.
The majority decision was written by Justice Rebecca Bradley and joined by the rest of the court’s conservative majority, including swing Justice Brian Hagedorn.
Both rulings mean absentee voting in Wisconsin’s 2022 election and beyond won’t be as convenient as it was two years ago when it surged during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nothing in the statutory language detailing the procedures by which absentee ballots may be cast mentions drop boxes or anything like them,” Bradley wrote.
This is an interesting ruling. There have been cases of people in nursing homes who were mentally compromised voting in elections because other people filled out their ballots for them and turned them in. Obviously that is wrong, but what about a person whose mobility is limited? How will they vote under this law? I am really not sure how well this law is going to work in actual practice.