In 2020, ballot drop boxes were a sturdy, metallic symbol of increased voter access amid a pandemic. Absentee and mail voting surged across the country, and voters used drop boxes to return 41% of those ballots.
Two years later, they’ve become a symbol of the attacks on voter access. After 2020, right-wing activists scrutinized security footage of drop boxes but failed to turn up evidence of widespread voter fraud. States across the country told the Associated Press there were no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft involving drop boxes that could have affected election outcomes.
But the campaigns against them are increasingly succeeding. Laws, court rulings and local and state politicians in at least a dozen states have targeted drop boxes in the last two years.
A Texas law banned them. New Hampshire eliminated them after its governor terminated an emergency order that allowed them during the pandemic.
Wisconsin had more than 500 locations in 2020, but the state’s Supreme Court declared drop boxes illegal in July.