Following a state Supreme Court ruling this month, city, town and village clerks are preparing to reopen ballot drop boxes for the upcoming election season.
But not all clerks are prepared to host drop boxes in their area for the August partisan primary election, according to Elena Hilby, city of Sun Prairie clerk and vice president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association.
On WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Hilby said many clerks plan to hold off using drop boxes until the general election in November to make sure they’re acting fully in compliance with state regulations.
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“It’s a mixed bag,” she said. “We were able to open up quicker but it’s just a matter of how quickly your clerk can get it up and running, make sure it’s secure and make sure it’s compliant.”
Municipalities all over Wisconsin used drop boxes to collect election ballots during the 2020 presidential election as a precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the state Supreme Court issued a near-total ban on drop boxes in the state. This month’s ruling reverses the Court’s previous decision.
Hilby said Sun Prairie hosts ballot drop boxes that will be up and running for the August primary election and beyond. She said the city had already been using the dropboxes for other municipal needs, like payments and the Parks and Rec department. That meant the city could prepare to host ballot drop boxes again more quickly than areas that are starting from scratch.
On “Wisconsin Today,” Hilby talked about the growing demand for drop boxes and what people should know when filling out their primary election ballots.
The following was edited for brevity and clarity.
Rob Ferrett: Let’s start with the primary ballot. I think sometimes people can get confused on those partisan primary ballots. What do people need to know?
Elena Hilby: I think what they mostly need to know is that when you’re looking at a partisan primary ballot, you’re looking at five ballots in one.
There are five parties that are qualified for ballot status. And each one of them is holding their primary all on the same ballot. In Wisconsin, you don’t have to walk up and say “I want a ballot from this party or that party.” That’s secret. But the only way we can do that is by putting them all on one ballot and you can only vote for one party on the primary. That’s where it gets a little confusing, because you’ll see all these options but you have to pick one party and stay within that party.
RF: If you vote for a Democrat in this race and a Republican in this race, you basically just zeroed out your ballot, right?
EH: You did, unless you were smart enough to select your party preference. That puts a little bit of a safety net. You can select party preference so that, if you do cross over, the tabulator will still count the vote from the party that you picked under the party preference.
RF: With the drop box saga, I know some communities have used them for a long time. They got really popular during the worst days of COVID. Since then, how many people were voting that way as opposed to in-person, in-person absentee or mailing ballots in?
EH: We really didn’t have drop boxes before COVID. Some municipalities may have but we did not, we hadn’t even thought about it. It wasn’t something anybody was demanding. They were able to drop it off at their clerk’s office or drop ballots in the mail.
There was an unfortunate event that the mail got slowed down with COVID. And when people didn’t trust the mail suddenly, which was never a concern before, they didn’t want to put ballots in the mail. They wanted another option. That’s just happened all at the same time. Before then, we didn’t have a need for drop boxes.
RF: Since COVID, how much demand has stayed up when you’ve had drop boxes out?
EH: They’re used quite frequently. It’s very easy for people. They don’t have to come by during our office hours, which is 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., which is about when everybody has to work. Now, they’re able to stop at 6 a.m. on their way to work or come in later.
