The intervention motion is part of the committee’s “Defend The Vote” program, which is a new multi-million dollar effort to “fight back against GOP voter suppression efforts in the U.S. Senate campaigns across the country,” according to a statement from the committee.

“The DSCC will use every tool at our disposal to fight back against Republicans’ tactics to restrict voting and protect Wisconsinites’ right to participate in our democracy,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, said in a statement. “Wisconsin is a critical Senate battleground, and we are committed to ensuring that voters who want to continue using drop boxes to securely and easily cast their ballot can do so.”

The motion is in response to a lawsuit filed in late June by Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of Richard Teigen, of Hartland, and Richard Thom, of Menomonee Falls, which challenges the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s guidance to election clerks last year on the use of ballot drop boxes leading up to the 2020 election.

Rick Esenberg, WILL president and general counsel, last month said the election commission’s advice to election clerks was “contrary to the law, putting the ballots of countless voters at risk.”

In the lawsuit, WILL challenges the state elections commission’s interpretation that ballot drop boxes can be unstaffed, temporary or permanent. WILL has asked the court for a declaratory judgement that state law only allows absentee ballots to be cast via the mail or by delivering it in-person to a municipal clerk.

In the intervention motion, DSCC states there is no evidence that the use of drop boxes facilitated voter fraud and those boxes helped ensure countless lawful voters were able to participate in the election.

“Plaintiffs seek to bar the use of this important form of access to the ballot box despite the absence of any evidence that voters misused drop boxes in 2020 or that the availability of them resulted in any voting fraud,” according to the motion. “The Wisconsin Elections Commission has repeatedly endorsed the use of appropriately regulated secure drop boxes in guidance to local election officials.”

The motion goes on to note that WEC’s drop box guidance follows best practices based on advice from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Absentee ballot boxes and community ballot collecting initiatives were widely used during the November election and had been cleared by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which oversees elections administered by thousands of Wisconsin cities and towns. Clerks made use of drop boxes during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide more return options for the significantly higher number of voters choosing to vote absentee.

The lawsuit has been widely panned by Democratic lawmakers, with Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, describing it last month as “blatantly anti-voter.”

The use of absentee ballot drop boxes was heavily scrutinized both before and after the November election, and the practice was included in unsuccessful lawsuits filed with state and federal courts by former President Donald Trump and others challenging President Joe Biden’s win in the state.

Those cases were ultimately unsuccessful in overturning Trump’s election loss. WILL alleges the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not weigh in on the legal status of absentee ballot drop boxes.

What’s more, the Wisconsin Supreme Court last month tossed out an election lawsuit brought by conservative businessman Jere Fabick, a prominent Republican donor and president of Fabick Cat, the Caterpillar equipment and engine dealer.

In a 4-3 decision, the court relied upon procedural reasons not to hear the case over concerns from a minority of conservative justices that the state’s highest court is avoiding taking on important cases.