Wisconsin Examiner: Election experts defend system, downplay threats at Milwaukee event

Henry Redman of the Wisconsin Examiner reports on an event where local, county, and state election officials defended Wisconsin’s elections as safe.

At the event, hosted jointly by the Milwaukee Press Club, Rotary Club of Milwaukee and Wisconsin Alliance for Civic Trust, Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, Milwaukee Elections Commission Director Paulina Gutierrez and former Republican state Sen. Kathy Bernier discussed how election conspiracy theories have affected the state over the last three years, the impact of last week’s state Supreme Court decision to again allow the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and how election officials across the state are preparing for this year’s elections.

Last Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned a 2022 decision, by the then-conservative majority on the Court, banning the use of drop boxes. In the previous decision, the Court ruled that absentee ballots must be brought to a mailbox or directly to a voter’s municipal clerk. In a 4-3 decision, the Court’s current liberal majority found that the previous ruling was “unsound in principle.”

Prior to 2022, dropboxes had been used by municipal clerks across the state in urban and rural communities. The method became especially popular in 2020 when absentee voting surged in popularity because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the event on Tuesday, Gutierrez said the city of Milwaukee is working to get its 15 drop box locations back into working order and educating voters about their return.

Keep reading at the Wisconsin Examiner.