Criminal investigation opens into Wisconsin mayor who moved ballot drop box

Disguised in a hard hat, work gloves, and a Department of Public Works jacket, the mayor of a central Wisconsin city this week carted away a ballot drop box outside City Hall that the city clerk had planned to make available to voters, The Washington Post reported.

A criminal investigation into Wausau Mayor Doug Diny has now been launched, the Post reported, after complaints that his action amounts to illegal election interference. A conservative, Diny was elected to the nonpartisan position earlier this year with backing from the state Republican Party.

Diny's unilateral decision to remove the ballot box came after the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this summer ruled that they were legal, the Associated Press reported. The investigation was opened after Marathon County District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon who announced Wednesday she was investigating the mayor's move after a city clerk, Kaitlyn Bernarde, filed a report about the missing drop box on Monday. 

Diny defended his actions in remarks on Wednesday.

“This is no different than the maintenance guy moving it out there,” he said. “I’m a member of staff. There’s nothing nefarious going on here. I’m hoping for a good result.”

The mayor, who moved the ballot box to his office, insisted that the public location was "not secure."

As the AP noted, it is a felony in Wisconsin to impede "the free exercise of the franchise at an election."

“This is the kind of action that’s designed to stir the pot,” one city resident said at a council meeting this week, the news service reported. “It does not tamp down the rhetoric that we’re all facing in this election cycle. It accomplishes nothing positive and amounts to, in my estimation, voting interference and intimidation.”