for Wisconsin. I'm so excited. >> All right, Brian Schimming,
thanks very much. >> We expect to talk with
Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler ahead of their state
convention next month on absentee ballot drop boxes. The
Republican Party weighed in against their use in a Wisconsin
lawsuit before the state Supreme Court, which heard oral
arguments this week. The case seeks to overturn a ruling made
by the court two years ago in a case referred to as Teigen,
which barred the use of drop boxes after the 2020 election.
Because law did not expressly allow their use.
or Teigen is that somehow, ift,
sstated in the statute, that it
principle? That's the principle
its head in Teigen.ng else on
>What if we made a mistake? Are?
perpetuate that mistake into the
future? cause Wisconsin argued for their
use. Its executive director, Jay Heck, joins us now. And Jay,
nice to see you. Great to be with you, Fred, and good to see
you again. So in your mind, should Wisconsin voters expect
to see the use of absentee ballot drop boxes for upcoming
elections, from what you heard in oral arguments, well, if the
oral arguments are any indication about what the court
might do, I am very positive or have a very good positive
feeling about what the outcome might be.
>> You know, one thing it's important to note is that we
have had drop boxes in Wisconsin for a number of years and of
course, most famously during 2020, in the pandemic, they were
a means for many thousands of Wisconsinites around the state
to be able to return their absentee ballots in a safe,
secure way. Rural voters, urban voters, young voters, old voters
, people with disabilities, Wisconsin is now the only state
in the upper Midwest, only non-red deep red state that
doesn't allow the use of them. >> So but the concern on the
part of Republicans is that those boxes could result in
fraud with ballot harvesting and the unsecured nature of them.
What about that? >> Well, those are the those are
the suspicions of election deniers and conspiracy theorists
during the 2020 election. Not a single incident of a drop box
being tampered with or fraud or any of these things. This is the
specter that is constantly raised to try to reduce the
ability of Wisconsinites to be able to vote safely by absentee
ballots, or sometimes even at polling places. So there's
nothing behind. And those fears, and they ought to be available
and hopefully will be for 2024, so that we can have more voices
and more people's votes counted rather than fewer.
>> So interestingly, the state GOP is now pushing early voting,
as we expressed to its chair. That's a sea change for
Republicans. But now they're trying to figure out how they'll
promote or dissuade the use of drop boxes, depending what the
Supreme Court does here, it seems like this could be kind of
complicated messaging. >> Well, it will be, although
you know, it early or early voting, both early voting and
absentee voting, which is the same, is it benefits voters of
all persuasions, not just liberals or Democrats. Everybody
benefits by being able to cast their vote when it's convenient
for them to do so, and so I think the Republican Party and
it sounds like they're wising up even on the drop boxes, is that
they will urge their voters to utilize those drop boxes. They
may continue to also raise the specter that there could be
fraud in case their side doesn't win. That's often what happens.
But I am confident that this this will result in safe, secure
voting for people all over the state and that we'll have more
voices and more votes to be that will be able to be counted after
the November election than than fewer.
chickens before they're hatched because the Supreme Court has
not yet ruled on this. But this is the sense of people like
yourself and others involved in the case. And following it
closely that that that was what looked like the persuasion out
of the oral arguments. >> Yeah. You never want to
predict for sure what the court will do, but one thing we know
about the Wisconsin Supreme Court now is that it's a little
easier to predict how they're going to rule on any given issue
than it used to be. >> So also, this week, a near
meltdown in the state Senate chambers during override votes
on Governor Evers vetoes. >> So Gaber not veto the
senator. >> You are out of order. You're
required to sit. You. You shall care. You're out of order.
>> You shall care. The Senate has the Republican votes to
override vetoes, but the Assembly, if close, does not in
your mind, J given that, why the dramatic effort to override this
week? >> Well, first of all, what a
complete and utter waste of the taxpayers, the voters of
Wisconsin's time and resources for the majority in the
Republican Republican majority to come in and decide that they
were once again going to try to override vetoes that have
previously been sustained and, you know, put put Wisconsin
through this exercise. Yes, they had the votes in the state
Senate, and yes, they were able to vote to override five, five
of the governor's bills. But they knew that the Assembly
didn't have the votes to do this . So it was just an exercise in
in political theater. It was designed to message to their
base that they're concerned about issues and they're
conservatives, and they're going to fight for this stuff. But it
did nothing to solve the problems that Wisconsin needs to
have addressed. And it's, again, a reason I call it the last gasp
of the hyper partizan gerrymandered legislature, where
hopefully after the November elections, we'll have a
legislature that more what Wisconsin really looks
like. And that would include more bipartisan cooperation and
actually working on things Wisconsinites care about than
that kind of political that kind of political