Absentee Ballot dropbox in Wausau. Image courtesy: Mayor Katie Rosenberg/Facebook
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – After a few days of reflection, it’s become clear to me how Wausau’s absentee ballot drop box controversy ends. His political opponents will use this ginned-up issue to try to drive Mayor Doug Diny from office. The writing is on the wall.
The Marathon County District Attorney’s office – which is filled with partisan Democrats – has forwarded the drop box complaint to the state’s Department of Justice. The groundwork investigation will be handled by the Portage County Sheriffs Department. Their findings won’t matter. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul dreams of a case like this. There’s little doubt he will file felony election interference charges against Wausau’s mayor. His democrat donors won’t settle for anything less.
You can be certain that a complaint will be brought in front of a liberal judge, or perhaps expedited to an appeals court in Dane County. These are the courts that have already ruled that Wisconsin’s abortion law doesn’t say what it clearly says, and that Act 10, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, is somehow illegal. I expect an emergency order that the drop box be put back.
Now, of course, the charges are false. Mayor Diny, the CEO of the city, could not have possibly interfered with an election that hadn’t started yet. The dropbox was locked and removed before early voting had begun. The drop box had not received a single ballot.
I see from a mile away that Wausau’s city council will launch an ethics investigation over this. The mayor will be censured as a MAGA republican who wants to keep people from voting. Nothing is further from the truth; the mayor stood up for election integrity. What is the result? A dysfunctional relationship between the Mayor and the City Council at a time when we are just weeks away from one of the most difficult city budgets in a generation.
This case will also expose the problems with our state supreme court making up law that doesn’t exist. Nowhere in state election law are ballot drop boxes mentioned. All we have to go on is a court ruling from last July. Had normal procedure been followed – where the legislature makes the law – there would be clarity on what happens when a mayor and a city clerk disagree on using drop boxes. Wausau’s city clerk is appointed, not elected; they are part of the mayor’s administration. Does a clerk get to act unilaterally outside the mayor’s authority? What poor precedent does that set? Does the Public Works Director get to act unilaterally on street projects? A housing director deciding unilaterally on where apartment buildings can and cannot go? No. City appointees are answerable to the mayor.
None of this matters when partisan politics are in-play. Be warned, Mayor Diny. The long knives are out for you.
Chris Conley
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