Republican lawmakers are working on legislation that could reshape the way elections are conducted in Wisconsin. They are suing in state courts and fast-tracking bills in the Wisconsin Legislature.

lake effect Heard from disability rights advocates about how some of the proposed legislation would impact voters with disabilities. They say bills and litigation that would restrict access to drop boxes and limit who can return mail-in ballots could create barriers to voting.

The Conservative Law Firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, known as WILL, has filed a lawsuit trying to regulate the use of drop boxes and who can return ballots. Rick Esenberg, president and general counsel of WILL, says more about the litigation.

First, WILL embarked on its own results of the 2020 elections and made recommendations for reform. Esenberg says there was no evidence an election was “stolen,” for lack of a better term. But he argues that the number of votes cast in a way that is not actually allowed by law has exceeded the margin of victory in the presidential race.

He also argues that private funding of election administration had some impact on the vote total for the Democratic nominee. He also claims that the election could have been more secure.

Why focus on absentee ballot boxes?

Esenberg says, “We have long believed that state election law only allows mail-in ballots to be returned in two ways: you must either place it in the United States mail or return it to the clerk. in person. .”

Esenberg says there is no provision in Wisconsin election law for drop boxes or for returning your ballot by giving it to someone else to return.

That’s why WILL sued Teigen v. Wisconsin Election Commission, a case currently pending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Drop boxes other than those located outside the city clerks’ offices will not be available in the upcoming April 5 election, but the court has yet to decide their ultimate fate.

WILL is also asking the court to ultimately uphold the trial court’s decision that a voter must return their own ballot to the ballot box. “Having someone else return your ballot to you will not be allowed in the April election and may not be allowed in the future depending on the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling on the case,” Esenberg said.

Esenberg says the prosecution’s intent is not to make it a criminal offense for someone else to return a ballot. But he notes that there are other laws that could, in certain circumstances, make it a crime to return a ballot through someone else.

The WILL case presented simply tries to clarify what the law is going to do, he says.

“Even though we think these changes are a good idea, they have to be enacted by the Legislative Assembly. And if the law doesn’t allow them, then, you know, we have to follow what the law requires. Because, again once an election is a competition. We have to abide by the rules that were established before the competition started,” says Esenberg.

Some political analysts, like Professor Barry Burden, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, say voters appreciated having access to a drop box. Burden says they are more secure than the US Postal Service system, they are monitored and some have cameras 24/7.

Esenberg says while drop boxes are arguably a good thing, it’s not for the Wisconsin Elections Commission or the courts to make that decision.

“Maybe Professor Burden is right, but that doesn’t mean the Wisconsin Elections Commission can just decide to have drop boxes because Professor Burden thinks it’s a good idea, or even [because] the Wisconsin Elections Commission thinks it’s a good idea. They must be enacted into law [by the legislature],” he says.

Esenberg says his company is not saying drop boxes contribute to widespread voter fraud, but rather points out that drop boxes are not permitted by law.

WILL noted that the current political environment is “laden with partisanship.” In his review of the 2020 election, WILL wrote that he found that “this widespread adoption of mail-in ballot boxes, unintended by Wisconsin law, correlated with an increase of approximately 20,000 votes for Joe Biden while having no significant effect on the vote for Trump.”

The report went on to say that it “does not claim that voters who used drop boxes were ineligible voters or should have had their votes thrown out.” But the organization said drop boxes without established security presented “election vulnerability and a challenge to state law.”

In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by a slim margin: 20,608 votes. Even though WILL claims that the use of drop boxes was correlated with an increase of about 20,000 votes for Joe Biden “without having a significant effect on voting for Trump”, Esenberg dismissed the question of whether the attacks legal action against drop boxes was partisan.

“Following the law cannot be reduced to a simple partisan exercise and a question of who benefits from it. The rule of law is important in electoral matters, I think it is a little too easy to simply dismiss this as a partisan exercise. I think these are very, very legitimate rule of law and security concerns here,” he said.

Esenberg says political parties have long been entrenched in their positions on election security issues. In his view, Republicans have been consistent about election security and the potential for voter fraud, while Democrats were no more concerned about these issues when a Republican won.

He argues that Democrats have always focused on what they see as voter suppression.

“I think both parties kind of have what they want to focus on in the election and that doesn’t really change based on what happened in the last election,” Esenberg said.