Matt Kittle, a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist, said Wisconsin’s five largest Democrat-controlled cities will be “littered” with unmanned ballot drop boxes for this year’s presidential election amid the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s recent 4-3 ruling in Priorities USA v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Last week, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to reverse a previous court ruling, endorsing the widespread use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the November 5 election.
Kittle, noting how Wisconsin’s use of drop boxes in the 2020 election under the “cover” of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the “election irregularities,” said that the state Supreme Court’s ruling endorsing widespread use of drop boxes will pose an even bigger “election integrity challenge.”
“It is no one’s surprise that [the Wisconsin Supreme Court] came back last week with a ruling that said, ‘You know what? The heck with the law, we think there should be drop boxes on every corner in Wisconsin.’ And so that’s where we are, and it presents a very serious election integrity challenge,” Kittle said on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Kittle said while the number of drop boxes used during this year’s election may be less than there was in 2020, the state’s five largest Democrat stronghold cities will no doubt be “littered” with drop boxes, to which he added will be “impactful” in the election.
“The usual suspects – what’s known as the Wisconsin 5, the largest Democrat strongholds in the state, Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, Kenosha – [drop boxes] will be littered throughout those major cities and it will be impactful. There’s no doubt about it,” Kittle said.
Kittle was not optimistic about the U.S. Supreme Court potentially striking down the state Supreme Court’s ruling to endorse such a ballot drop box practice.
“My sense is no and certainly not before it matters. The U.S. Supreme Court very rarely involves itself in state decisions that have gone through the judicial process in the state. It does not like to do that by policy, by precedent, and so it is unlikely,” Kittle said. “I think it is very highly unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court would involve itself in this particular state issue.”
Kittle also addressed Republicans’ strategy amid the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling endorsing widespread drop boxes, saying how the state’s Republican Party plans to rally an “army of volunteers” – such as poll workers and poll watchers – as an effort to secure the election as much as possible.
“[Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming] said, ‘What is done is done right now.’ They have to deal with reality. So what the Republican party of Wisconsin has done is they have enlisted an army of volunteers – poll workers, poll watchers. They’ve really upped their game on that front from 2020. I think they’ve learned a lot of lessons from 2020. Let’s hope it’s enough to have observers because we know as well that you can have as many observers as you want but if the regulators in the state, the Wisconsin Elections Commission or the courts do nothing about it, it’s an exercise in futility,” Kittle said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Ballot Drop Box” by CliffordSnow. CC BY-SA 4.0.
