Suit alleges Wisconsin city’s mobile ballot van favored Dems and is illegal

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed an appeal against the City Clerk of Racine, alleging that the utilization of mobile voting cites violated Wisconsin state laws.

Wisconsin state law (Wis. Stat. § 6.855) states that the office of the municipal clerk is the default location "to which voted absentee ballots shall be returned by electors for any election." But there may be circumstances when the clerk's office is unavailable for early, in person absentee voting. In those cases, the clerk may designate an alternate absentee ballot site or sites; but under state law, "[t]he designated site shall be located as near as practicable to the office of the municipal clerk or board of election commissioners and no site may be designated that affords an advantage to any political party."

WILL alleges that the Racine City Clerk provided 21 alternate absentee ballot locations scattered throughout the city, resulting in advantage being given to the Democrat Party since most of these locations were in more Democrat areas. 

"Racine's abuse of alternate absentee ballot sites circumvents multiple statutory safeguards on the collection of absentee ballots. The WEC Commissioners failed to take action and delegated the matter to the WEC Administrator who declined to enjoin Racine's illegal behavior," WILL Deputy Counsel, Anthony LoCoco said in a statement.

"Further, although WILL's complaint was filed in August, the WEC Administrator did not issue her decision on the matter until in-person absentee voting for the 2022 general election was essentially completed which meant that WILL could not appeal the decision until after the November general election was over," the statement continued. "We are confident that a court will put an end to Racine's egregious practices."

WILL has asked the court to look into Racine's alleged illegal ballot collection practices.