The Center for Election Confidence Chief Policy Counsel Caleb Hays is featured in WisPolitics.com, Wisconsin’s premier political news service, with a guest column reminding Wisconsin election clerks that any decision to reintroduce ballot drop boxes must be handled with care and put security first.
The recent eleventh-hour ruling by the Wisconsin State Supreme Court to give local election clerks the option to reintroduce ballot drop boxes has injected extraordinary uncertainty into Wisconsin’s elections.
Across the country, poorly designed ballot drop box programs have been widely associated with election security concerns. If the procedures surrounding the drop box security, use, and placement are not transparent, fair, and honest, drop boxes have the potential to upend voter confidence. Yet, while the court re-authorized the use of drop boxes in Wisconsin, it failed to mandate, or even recommend, a single security measure for this ballot-return method, something lawmakers in neighboring states have done.