Wisconsin Department of Justice investigating mayor’s removal of ballot drop box

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Department of Justice confirmed Thursday that its criminal investigators are looking into the removal of Wausau’s only absentee ballot drop box by the mayor last month.

The Marathon County district attorney had asked for assistance from DOJ about the incident in the small city about 200 miles northwest of Milwaukee. The department’s Division of Criminal Investigation will take the lead, said the agency’s spokesperson Gillian Drummond.

Mayor Doug Diny removed the city’s drop box on Sept. 22 without consulting with the clerk, who has the authority under a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling to make one available. They are not mandatory in the state.

Diny, who ran as a conservative and opponent of drop boxes in the nonpartisan mayor’s race, has said he wanted the city council to discuss whether to use a drop box. The council is scheduled to discuss the issue at a meeting Tuesday.

The mayor turned the box back over to the clerk, who had it installed and bolted to the ground on Monday.

The box was locked and no ballots were in it when the mayor took it. City workers planned to bolt it to the ground but did not have a chance to do it before the mayor, wearing a hard hat and posing for pictures he later distributed, wheeled it away.

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