Wausau Mayor Doug Diny made a bold move on Sunday, taking matters into his own hands and physically removing an absentee ballot drop box from outside City Hall.
Diny donned work gloves and a hard hat as he carted away the unsecured drop box on a dolly, ensuring its safety until the city council could make an official decision, AP reported.
While liberal critics screamed “voter suppression,” Diny stood firm, insisting that his actions were intended to protect the voting process from potential abuse.
“This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,” Diny said, dismissing the overblown accusations of voter interference.
“I’m a member of staff. There’s nothing nefarious going on here. I’m hoping for a good result.”
“My position is that this city does not need one,” he said.
The Washington Post reported:
The move by Wausau Mayor Doug Diny came as officials around the battleground state wrestle with whether to use drop boxes after the state Supreme Court this summer gave them that ability. Officials in Milwaukee, Madison and other Democratic strongholds have embraced them, while their counterparts in some of Milwaukee’s suburbs and other Republican areas have banned them.
Nowhere has the dispute been more prominent than Wausau, a city of 40,000 people in the heart of the state. The mayor, who was elected in the spring with the help of the Republican Party, said he moved the drop box to his office Sunday because he believed the city council should decide whether the city should use it.
[…]
The Wausau Pilot & Review earlier reported on the removal of the drop box. Diny gave the publication a photo of him wheeling it away and said he did not believe he had done anything illegal.
Clerks in Wisconsin have sent more than 410,000 absentee ballots since mail voting began last week, and voters can return them by mail, at clerk’s offices or to drop boxes.
The Wausau drop box was placed outside of city hall late last week, and the clerk planned to have it secured to the ground so that it could be used starting Monday, according to city officials. It was locked, and voters could not place ballots inside while it was awaiting installation, City Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde said.
Bernarde said she discovered the drop box was missing Monday and reported the matter to Marathon County District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon (D), who said Wednesday that she has launched an investigation. The drop box will not be used for now, but voters can return ballots in a separate box normally used for payments to the city government, Bernarde said.
The post Wisconsin Mayor Takes Matters Into His Own Hands: Says He Did Nothing Wrong After Using Dolly to Remove Ballot Drop Box Outside City Hall appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.