Republicans Hit With Legal Move To Halt Aggressive Voter Suppression

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), a committee within the national Democratic Party that works on U.S. Senate races, has filed a new motion seeking to intervene in a Wisconsin lawsuit challenging the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots in the state. The committee’s motion provides them with an opportunity to argue against the original lawsuit. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who chairs the DSCC, insisted that the committee “will use every tool at our disposal to fight back against Republicans’ tactics to restrict voting and protect Wisconsinites’ right to participate in our democracy.”

Peters also said that the DSCC is “committed to ensuring that voters who want to continue using drop boxes to securely and easily cast their ballot can do so.” The original lawsuit was filed by a conservative group known as the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, and as summarized by the Wisconsin State Journal, those behind the case are seeking “a declaratory judgement that state law only allows absentee ballots to be cast via the mail or by delivering it in-person to a municipal clerk,” seemingly eliminating drop boxes altogether.

In their new filing, the DSCC notes (referencing drop boxes) that those responsible for the original lawsuit “seek to bar the use of this important form of access to the ballot box despite the absence of any evidence that voters misused drop boxes in 2020 or that the availability of them resulted in any voting fraud.” It’s true — despite the nationwide push by prominent Republicans to impose new voting restrictions for the supposed sakes of election security and election integrity, no meaningful evidence has ever emerged showing any kind of systematic fraud in last year’s election cycle. Republicans pushing these new restrictions are, at least in part, responding to a problem that does not exist. In the process, they’re making it more difficult to vote.

The new Wisconsin filing is part of a $10 million initiative from the DSCC described as the “Defend the Vote” program. In the midterm elections, control of both chambers of Congress will be at stake, and with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) up for re-election in a state where Biden won last year, Wisconsin is a key part of the national elections map. Johnson’s seat could potentially flip.