Wisconsin Supreme Court weighs legality of Racine mobile voting vehicle (2024)

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a lawsuit seeking to ban the use of mobile voting vehicles in future elections in the battleground state.

The lawsuit stems from a vehicle used as a remote polling place and voter registration station in Racine in the two weeks leading up to the 2022 primary. The truck, and questions about its use, soon became the target of GOP scrutiny: Some Republicans claimed it was being used to boost Democratic votes during the Aug. 9 primary that year, when there were several hotly contested races on the ballot, including GOP primaries for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

A ruling is not expected until after the November presidential election, but the court’s decision ultimately will determine whether such mobile voting vehicles will be legal in future elections. The deadline for towns and cities to request an alternative voting location in the November election was June, and no sites had been requested.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, much of the state Supreme Court’s discussion focused on whether the plaintiff, Racine County Republican Party Chairman Ken Brown, had standing to bring the lawsuit after seeing the voting vehicle being used in Racine’s 2022 primary.

Gabe Johnson-Karp, representing the Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued Brown has no standing to bring the lawsuit as he was not personally injured.

“The type of injury we have alleged in this case, a generalized grievance of too many people voting, or the election officials not following the law, that is not a cognizable injury,” Johnson-Karp said.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley questioned that sentiment, noting that state law allows for an appeal process when the commission dismisses a matter, as was the case with Brown’s complaint.

“Let’s say WEC completely botches it and WEC gets the law wrong,” Bradley said. “You’re suggesting then the Legislature says, ‘Mm, sorry, it stops at WEC,’ and a court cannot come in and review that decision of an administrative agency … you’re saying that the judiciary doesn’t get to come in and review that decision?”

Lucas Vebber, an attorney with conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty, said appealing the elections commission’s dismissal was Brown’s only course of action.

Asked if the court still could consider other matters in the lawsuit even if it determines Brown has no standing, Vebber said, “It would be beneficial to the voters of Wisconsin and to the government entities to resolve these issues.”

Circuit court ruled van illegal

Shortly after the 2022 primary, Brown filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission challenging the city’s Mobile Election Unit. The commission dismissed the complaint later that year.

In the subsequent lawsuit, Brown argues the van’s use violates state law and only was used in Racine’s more Democratic areas to boost liberal turnout.

Vebber said state law requires that any alternate voting site needs to be as near as practicable to the local clerk’s office and provide no advantage to any political party.

Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet pushed back on Vebber’s argument, noting that setting up an alternate voting site serves more than just those who reside in that particular ward.

“Isn’t it true that people work in other wards, they run errands in other wards, they pass a ward on the way to work — Democrats and Republicans?” Dallet said. “How can you just make this presumption that having another site in their ward is somehow going to benefit anybody?”

State law bars locating early voting sites in areas that give an advantage to a political party. Attorneys for Racine City Clerk Tara McMenamin argued in court filings the van’s use falls within state requirements and the locations chosen provided “no political advantage” to any party.

Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz ruled in January the city’s van was illegal, noting that Wisconsin’s election statutes refer to physical structures for absentee voting and none “allow for the use of a mobile alternative absentee voting vehicles.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in June to keep Gasiorkiewicz’s ruling in place pending further consideration, marking a preliminary win for Republicans.

Nongovernmental grant funded van

The Racine City Council approved funding for one truck to serve as a mobile early voting site in June 2020. The city used it for the first time in the state’s spring primary in February 2022.

The vehicle was purchased using grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit that provided funding to communities across the country to help election officials update technology and increase voter participation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The center received a $350 million donation in 2020 from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, which prompted some Republicans to complain the money unfairly helped increase turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine.

Court rulings have found nothing illegal about the more than $10 million in grants CTCL distributed to about 214 municipalities in 39 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.