As the 2022 midterm elections approach, judges in the states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin recently delivered major rulings in favor of election integrity. The judgments will undoubtedly have serious implications for the upcoming November election, as officials across the country aim to avoid a repeat of the catastrophic 2020 election.
In Wisconsin, Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren ruled that the mass use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election was unlawful on January 13th. According to the judgment, Wisconsin state law only allows for absentee ballot drop boxes to be located at local election clerk offices. To quote Judge Bohren, “It’s all good and nice, but there’s no authority to do it.” In 2020, over 500 absentee ballot drop boxes were wrongfully utilized across the state of Wisconsin. Interestingly, there is no publicly available data that details exactly how many ballots were cast and accepted via said drop boxes. However, according to a December report, the mass use of absentee ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin was correlated with an increase of approximately 20,000 votes for Joe Biden and provided no vote boost for Trump. For reference, Joe Biden won the state of Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes in 2020.
On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the ruling from Judge Bohren in Richard Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission. As a result, the Wisconsin Supreme Court made it clear that absentee ballot drop boxes could not be utilized in the upcoming April primary election. According to the preliminary ruling, “The Commission and intervenors have not demonstrated that irreparable injury or substantial harm to interested parties or the public interest will result if a stay is not extended through the April 2022 election and beyond.” Lastly, the judgment maintains the lower court’s view that absentee ballots can only lawfully be turned in by mail or hand, and that nobody besides the voter to whom the ballot was addressed may return said ballot. This fantastic ruling officially affirmed Wisconsin’s policy of not allowing ballot harvesting anywhere in the state.
On January 28th, a panel of Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court judges ruled that Act 77 was enacted unconstitutionally due to the fact that it was passed via statute as opposed to a constitutional referendum. To quote the ruling, “The Pennsylvania Constitution requires a qualified elector to present her ballot in person at a designated polling place on Election Day, except where she meets one of the constitutional exceptions for absentee voting. No-excuse mail-in voting cannot be reconciled with the Pennsylvania Constitution.” Act 77 was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2019 and permitted no-excuse mail-in voting in the 2020 presidential election. Regardless of the judgment, the law remains in effect for now as the Democrat defendants in the critical case have already appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Sadly, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is Democrat-controlled by a margin of 5-2, so there is a legitimate chance that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will disregard the law and reverse the lower court’s ruling in order to promote their own political party. Thankfully, the conservative plaintiffs in the case are well aware of this fact and have publicly vowed to appeal their case to the Conservative-controlled U.S. Supreme Court if Act 77 is reinstated by the liberal-dominated Pennsylvania Supreme Court.