A Wisconsin mayor who removed an empty, locked ballot drop box and took it into his office in September 2024 will not be charged with a crime, a special prosecutor said Wednesday.
The removal of the drop box by Mayor Doug Diny of Wausau, Wis., a Republican, had stoked fears about drop box security before a contentious presidential election. Mr. Diny said at the time that he did not believe the box, which was still being set up and had not yet been bolted to the ground, would be secure. He also said that he disagreed with the city clerk about who had the authority to decide whether to install the box, which contained no ballots at the time of its removal.
The special prosecutor, Eric J. Toney, who is the district attorney of Fond du Lac County and is running for state attorney general, said Wednesday that his review had found that there was not sufficient evidence to prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
In a seven-page memo, his office cited the lack of ballots in the drop box and said the box did not fit the legal definition of a ballot box under Wisconsin state law. The review was signed by Mr. Toney, a Republican; Joan Korb, a Democrat and a local prosecutor; and Kennedy Cutts, another local prosecutor.
“There are some that wanted charges issued based on politics and others that did not want charges issued based on politics,” Mr. Toney said in a statement. “However, the facts are the facts, and the law is the law.”
In an interview on Wednesday evening, Mr. Diny acknowledged that the episode had been “to some level a national embarrassment” for Wausau, a city of about 40,000 people in central Wisconsin, a swing state.
The mayor, who has two years left in his term, said that he was pleased by the special prosecutor’s finding and that it was “time for the city to move on with city business.”
In October, the five-member Wausau Ethics Board unanimously found that Mr. Diny had violated the city’s ethics code by exceeding his authority in removing the ballot box.
A spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Philip Shulman, argued on Wednesday that Mr. Diny had gotten a “free pass on a technicality” and said that the mayor had been trying to sow doubts about the election’s integrity.
In 2024, Mr. Diny said that the box’s installation did not conform with security guidelines from the Wisconsin Elections Commission. He argued that the City Council should have been consulted on the box’s installation.
The city clerk, Kaitlyn Bernarde, said the box did not comply with the guidelines because it had not yet been fully installed — her office had intended to bolt it to the ground before opening it for use. It was not ready for use when Mr. Diny removed it, she said at the time. Ms. Bernarde did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Mr. Diny ultimately returned the box to the city clerk, and it was used in the 2024 election.
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