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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Today in weird election arguments, Wisconsin has an ongoing dispute about the legality of ballot drop boxes and with a shift in Supreme Court seats, there is a big stare decisis is for suckers revisiting of it:

The 4-3 decision released Friday reverses a near-total ban on ballot drop boxes, which was handed down by the state's high court in 2022.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded in another 4-3 ruling that unsupervised ballot drop boxes outside of clerk's offices are illegal, because they're not specifically authorized in Wisconsin law.

I have my usual objections to encouraging more absentee voting, but they're not the point from a legal perspective. Instead, let's just look at the actual statute:

Except as otherwise provided in s. 6.875, an elector voting absentee, other than a military elector or an overseas elector, shall make and subscribe to the certification before one witness who is an adult U.S. citizen. A military elector or an overseas elector voting absentee, regardless of whether the elector qualifies as a resident of this state under s. 6.10, shall make and subscribe to the certification before one witness who is an adult but who need not be a U.S. citizen. The absent elector, in the presence of the witness, shall mark the ballot in a manner that will not disclose how the elector's vote is cast. The elector shall then, still in the presence of the witness, fold the ballots so each is separate and so that the elector conceals the markings thereon and deposit them in the proper envelope. If a consolidated ballot under s. 5.655 is used, the elector shall fold the ballot so that the elector conceals the markings thereon and deposit the ballot in the proper envelope. If proof of residence under s. 6.34 is required and the document enclosed by the elector under this subdivision does not constitute proof of residence under s. 6.34, the elector shall also enclose proof of residence under s. 6.34 in the envelope. Except as provided in s. 6.34 (2m), proof of residence is required if the elector is not a military elector or an overseas elector and the elector registered by mail or by electronic application and has not voted in an election in this state. If the elector requested a ballot by means of facsimile transmission or electronic mail under s. 6.86 (1) (ac), the elector shall enclose in the envelope a copy of the request which bears an original signature of the elector. The elector may receive assistance under sub. (5). The return envelope shall then be sealed. The witness may not be a candidate. The envelope shall be mailed by the elector, or delivered in person, to the municipal clerk issuing the ballot or ballots. [emphasis mine] If the envelope is mailed from a location outside the United States, the elector shall affix sufficient postage unless the ballot qualifies for delivery free of postage under federal law. Failure to return an unused ballot in a primary does not invalidate the ballot on which the elector's votes are cast. Return of more than one marked ballot in a primary or return of a ballot prepared under s. 5.655 or a ballot used with an electronic voting system in a primary which is marked for candidates of more than one party invalidates all votes cast by the elector for candidates in the primary.

To fulfill that clause and allow remote ballot drop boxes, the new court would need to discover that these remote drop boxes are actually the municipal clerk. That might sound like a stretch, but they're willing to enact the labor:

¶25 By mandating that an absentee ballot be returned not to the "municipal clerk's office," but "to the municipal clerk," the legislature disclaimed the idea that the ballot must be delivered to a specific location and instead embraced delivery of an absentee ballot to a person——the "municipal clerk." Given this, the question then becomes whether delivery to a drop box constitutes delivery "to the municipal clerk" within the meaning of Wis. Stat. § 6.87(4)(b)1.

¶26 We conclude that it does. A drop box is set up, maintained, secured, and emptied by the municipal clerk.10

This is being characterized as a big win for democracy. To be clear, I don't really think there's anything going on here that's a problem or poses a threat, but it just remains very weird to me how there are all these arguments in favor of doing weird things that don't really seem necessary with solutions in search of a problem. What exactly is the situation where someone can't drop a ballot in the mail or swing by the clerk's office? Why is it so critical to Our Democracy^tm that there be more drop boxes? I suppose one could easily ask the same of Republicans, wondering why it's so critical that clerk's offices not put out boxes, but it seems like the simple answer in this case is simply that the statute pretty obviously doesn't allow it.

I mean, I sort of have the same argument that I do for dentists - clerks, especially government ones, generally have workday hours at best. Most working people are, uh, also at work at those times. Few people either can or want to leave work just to drop off a ballot. Thus, accessibility to voting to basically a massive portion of the population (plus the ones we kind of want to vote in the first place) is obviously a big deal. Drop boxes neatly solve this issue by allowing consolidation with other errands, often conveniently done before or after work, and without relying on the capricious hours of government employees who keep their own annoying hours more out of selfish desire rather than a true desire to serve the people their job is to serve. This is more understandable for dentists, who really want to get paid more than to help people, but less understandable for government agents, whose entire purpose is to help people, which makes one wonder why they are often so bad at it.

The statute allows simply mailing ballots. There is no problem here that needs solving.

I don't think I've ever actually mailed a physical letter in my entire life. I'm sure it's not too hard, but one can imagine 80IQ or low-motivation people screwing it up.

No offense, but what possible lifestyle do you live? Are you really young, like college age?

Am I just old and out of touch, or are you a strange outlier?

I’m youngish (just shy of 30). I have never sent a physical letter. No one I know my age has ever sent a physical letter. I have sent 1 package by UPS. I recently had to walk a friend through how to do so because they had no idea how it worked at all, whether they needed their own box or were provided one etc.

It’s just really not that common unless you sell stuff online or something and so need to ship things.

You've never had to deal with a government agency by mail?

No. In what context would that be necessary? All state-level stuff has always been online, and county-level, while theoretically doable via mail, is easier to just do in person. I can’t think of anything that would require the mail, and anything that doesn’t require it gets sped up by several weeks by not using it.

Meanwhile, all my dealings with the feds have involved a blacked-out SUV showing up at my door. By far the most convenient.

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