Madison, Wisconsin
CNN
—
The mayor of a central Wisconsin town who ran for office because of his opposition to mail-in ballot drop boxes said Wednesday he did nothing wrong when he put on work gloves, donned a hard hat and used a cart to carry a drop box past city hall.
Wausau Mayor Doug Diny posed for a photo Sunday to commemorate the removal of the city’s only drop box that had been placed outside City Hall around the same time last week that mail-in ballots were sent to voters.
“It’s no different than the maintenance guy moving it over there,” Diny said Wednesday. “I’m a staff member. There’s nothing bad going on here. I’m hoping for a good outcome.”
Diny ran as a conservative and was endorsed by the Republican Party in the nonpartisan mayoral race. He is in his first year as Wausau mayor after being elected in April.
The decision, which sparked a protest in the city Tuesday night and anger from drop-box advocates, is the latest example in the swing state of Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow mail-in ballot drop-off boxes.
Several Republican-led municipalities, including six in Milwaukee County, two in Waukesha County and three in Dodge County, have chosen not to use drop boxes for the November presidential election, while they are being adopted in heavily Democratic cities including Milwaukee and Madison.
Drop boxes were widely used in 2020, fueled by a dramatic increase in mail voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At least 500 drop boxes were installed in more than 430 communities for that year’s election, including more than a dozen in Madison and Milwaukee. Drop boxes were used in 39 other states in the 2022 election, according to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
After former President Donald Trump lost in 2020, he and other Republicans claimed that drop boxes facilitated cheating, though they provided no evidence. Democrats, election officials and some Republicans have argued that the boxes are secure.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, then controlled by conservatives, banned the use of drop boxes in 2022.
But in July, the now Liberal-controlled court overturned that decision and allowed the drop boxes to go ahead. The court left it up to each community to decide whether to install them.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, in guidance sent in July to more than 1,800 clerks who administer Wisconsin elections, said it was up to municipal clerks to determine where the drop boxes should be located.
Wausau, with about 40,000 residents, was among the cities that did not use mail-in ballot drop boxes during the August state primary. Wausau is in Marathon County, which Trump won by 18 points in 2016 and 2020.
Diny said he and City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde never discussed the drop box before it was placed in front of City Hall late last week. Diny said he decided to take action Sunday when he realized the drop box was “not secure.”
Bernarde did not respond to emails or voicemails Wednesday seeking comment.
Diny said he wants the city council to have a say in what happens with the drop box. If the city council had voted to put the drop box in place, Diny said he wouldn’t have had the power to remove it.
While Diny said he is generally opposed to drop boxes, he also said he takes no position on whether they should be implemented for ballots that are currently in voters’ hands and can be returned before Election Day.
“As it stands, I am not involved in this hunt,” Diny said. “I want it to be done properly and with the proper participation and consent of citizens.”
In Wisconsin, preventing or obstructing “the free exercise of the right to vote at an election” is a misdemeanor. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has urged clerks to contact law enforcement if anyone attempts to tamper with a drop box or prevent its use.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has issued a series of recommendations to ensure the security of drop boxes that are not located inside buildings, including that they be under video surveillance, secured, in a well-lit area and that a clear chain of custody be created for ballot retrieval. The Wausau drop box was under video surveillance but had not yet been bolted down.
Diny has said he did nothing wrong. City attorney Anne Jacobson did not respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.
“If someone had put the package in their van and taken it away, the police would have been looking for them for theft of property,” Diny said. The drop box is being secured at city hall while the issue is being resolved, he added.
Wausau resident Pamela Bannister, speaking at a city council meeting Tuesday night, called on Diny to apologize and return the drop box.
“These are the kinds of measures that are designed to sow discord,” Bannister said. “It does not calm the rhetoric that we are all facing in this election cycle. It does not accomplish anything positive and amounts, in my view, to vote interference and intimidation.”
