Wisconsin voters rejoice over reinstated ballot drop boxes

In the months leading up to the November presidential election, Racine resident Rosa Espinoza has been worried about how she’s going to vote.

Espinoza was diagnosed in 2019 with severe asthma, a respiratory illness that can make it hard to breathe. It became difficult and even dangerous for her to be out in public or around other people, such as at a polling place.

Absentee ballot drop boxes were a safe option for her. The drop boxes, which in Wisconsin have been around for decades, are a secure option for voters to drop their absentee ballots off with their municipal clerk without having to interact with another human, and became more widely used at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But during the 2020 presidential election, drop boxes became a political lightning rod when Donald Trump and other Republicans claimed without evidence that they were used to rig the election.

In July 2022, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, then dominated by a conservative majority, declared that unsupervised drop boxes were illegal in Wisconsin, and the boxes were shuttered around the state.

“It just felt like I didn’t matter anymore,” Espinoza said.

“I was really worried and I was thinking like, well, what are my options?” she said. “There was no other option for me. Either I try to go out there and risk getting sick and end up in the hospital for months, or hoping that it came, or just not voting. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”

On July 5, however, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which now has a liberal majority, ruled that municipal clerks around the state could resume using ballot drop boxes.

Voters and voting rights advocacy groups gathered at the Milwaukee Public Library Center Street Branch on July 10 to ceremonially “unlock” a drop box — cutting a paper chain off of a symbolic cardboard ballot box. The real drop box sat behind them, still covered by a tarp waiting to be reopened.

“This ruling ensures that voters, regardless of their background, physical limitations, work schedule, caregiving commitments, or any circumstance now have equal access to the ballot box to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” said James Stein, the deputy advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

“Health care heroes, single parents, students, our elderly, our disabled community, this victory is for you,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Wisconsin has held seven statewide elections in the two years that drop boxes were banned, a period of time that put a lot of pressure on family members and caretakers who had to help voters with limitations get to the polls or try to vote by mail, said the Rev. Greg Lewis, the executive director of the organization Souls to the Polls.

“This will make it a lot easier for a whole lot more people,” Lewis said.

Without the drop boxes, Espinoza was left to vote by mail, which she said was unreliable. Her absentee ballot would sometimes arrive too late, and one time it did not arrive at all. She felt guilty after an election in which she was unable to vote when the candidate she supported didn’t win.

“That’s how I felt, it was my fault. He didn’t win because of me, because I didn’t get out there and try to make that effort to vote. But you know, physically, I couldn’t do it,” she said.

Patty Yunk, with the League of Progressive Seniors, said that restoring the drop boxes will make it easier to engage older citizens.

“Just because we are getting a little older and a little slower doesn’t mean that we are not able to exercise our right to vote,” she said. “We are so happy that the drop boxes are back, that seniors and others can be able to utilize this as a tool to make sure that their voice is heard, their voice that has a right to be heard, and their voices that all of us citizens need.”

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance to the state’s municipal clerks on how to keep drop boxes, and the areas they’re placed in, safe and accessible.

Clerks aren’t required to provide drop boxes for voters, and it’s unclear exactly how many will be reopened. There were 570 drop boxes in 66 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties in the spring of 2021, according to the elections commission.

When Espinoza heard the news that the drop boxes would be returning, she said, it felt like her voice mattered again.

“I felt like my rights were taken away because of my illness,” she said. “This drop box actually gave me my rights back, my right to vote, my right for my voice to be heard.”