In Wisconsin, election officials push back against critics of drop boxes
George Dreckmann and his wife Diane are not just husband and wife. They are also "ballot buddies" in Madison, Wisconsin, tasked with emptying ballot drop boxes daily -- a routine that has been engulfed in controversy in the state over the past few years.
Ballot drop boxes, secure structures where people can safely submit a completed mail ballot, have been at the center of election conspiracy theories in Wisconsin since 2020, after a right-wing film falsely linked them to ballot stuffing.
"We have specially trained ballot courier teams [and] we have a pretty strong chain of custody," Paulina Gutierrez, the new election administrator for Milwaukee, told ABC News' Deborah Roberts."We are following the best practices that have been provided by national and federal partners and also following the guidance of the Wisconsin Election Commission."
"The drop boxes are secure," Dreckmann told ABC News. "We have a chain-of-custody system in place so that we know when we picked up the ballots and when we dropped them off."
The boxes were banned in the crucial swing state in 2022 by a conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court, but were reinstated by a liberal-controlled court this past July.
But despite the court's recent ruling, some officials in the state are pushing back.
Last month, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny carted off the city's only absentee ballot drop box and stashed it in his office -- a move that prompted an investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Diny told Wausau ABC affiliate WAOW that he believed the drop box, which did not contain ballots, was not properly secured to the sidewalk and decided to take matters into his own hands. It was later returned and bolted to the ground.
Diny, who ran for mayor as an opponent of drop boxes, insists he did nothing wrong.
He had previously said he wanted the city council to discuss whether to allow a drop box in the Central Wisconsin city.
"Wisconsin's used ballot boxes for decades and decades," Ann Jacobs, the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told ABC News. "Unfortunately, some communities have fallen prey to the conspiracy theories surrounding drop boxes and have elected not to use them. I say unfortunately because drop boxes are a safe, easy and effective way to transmit your ballot directly from you, the voter, to your clerk."
Gutierrez, who has embraced ballot drop boxes, has been focused on providing greater transparency to encourage voters to trust the boxes.
"Every box has a camera on it," Gutierrez said. "You can't just put any ballot in here. When a ballot comes in here, we take it to our operations center to make sure it's a legitimate ballot."
"If at any point some of that stuff isn't adding up, it won't be counted," Gutierrez said.
As poll workers who have spent several election cycles emptying ballot drop boxes and securing absentee ballots, Dreckmann and his wife call the conspiracy theories about drop boxes "frustrating."
"You have to trust the process and the safeguards we have in place," Dreckmann said. "The dropbox system is as safe as putting it in the mail."
