by Benjamin Yount
There’s a lawsuit filed over Racine’s mobile voting van.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Thursday sued the City Clerk of Racine to bring an end to the van.
“Racine’s abuse of alternate absentee ballot sites circumvents multiple statutory safeguards on the collection of absentee ballots,” WILL lawyer Anthony LoCoco said in a statement.
WILL’s suit claims Racine used the van to give Democrats an unfair advantage in early and absentee voting.
Racine’s clerk “provided for 21 alternate absentee ballot locations (not centrally located but scattered throughout the city) and the majority of which provided an advantage to the Democratic Party because they were located in the most Democratic parts of the City,” WILL’s lawsuit states.
Racine claimed that state law allows for alternative voting sites, but WILL countered that the same state law requires those alternative voting sites “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.”
LoCoco said that WILL is going to court because the Wisconsin Elections Commission ignored their pre-election challenge to the van, and allowed Racine to essentially do as it pleased.
“The WEC Commissioners failed to take action and delegated the matter to the WEC Administrator who declined to enjoin Racine’s illegal behavior,” LoCoco explained. “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.”
WEC did rule the voting van was not handicapped accessible. But Racine’s clerk installed a doorbell that she said brought it into compliance with ADA laws.
No one has yet said just how many people were registered or voted through the voting van.
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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Racine” by JeremyA. CC BY-SA 2.5.
