Doug Diny
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – The Portage County Sheriffs Department will investigate the absentee ballot drop box issue in Wausau.
Here’s my advice to Mayor Doug Diny:
When the sheriffs investigator arrives, the first question the mayor should ask is this: “Gentlemen, is this a criminal investigation?”
If the answer is “yes,” the mayor should end all cooperation and refuse to answer any questions. He is under no obligation to provide the rope that some people want to hang him with. And there are some people who have stretched their imagination to the point where interfering with an election is a felony. All that’s missing is the interference part. Early voting hadn’t started when the mayor wheeled the unsecured drop box away and it was locked; no one could use it yet.
Certainly this is a criminal investigation. It would not have been assigned to a law enforcement agency if it wasn’t. Our police don’t mediate disputes between government officials. They investigate whether laws were broken. And, as I pointed out in yesterday’s commentary, there is no law. Wisconsin’s legislature has never passed a law that allows for absentee drop boxes. All we have is a ruling from the state Supreme Court wishing it was so. Such is the problem with the court’s liberals making things up as they go along. Some communities have put the drop box issue to a vote of the city council. Others have allowed their municipal clerks to decide. Some have rejected drop boxes outright.
This is also a test for the Portage County Sheriffs Department. The logical conclusion of their investigation is that we have been asked to investigate a policy disagreement between Wausau’s mayor and Wausau’s city clerk. Policy disagreements do not rise to the level of criminality.
Chris Conley
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