Republican DA Eric Toney Will Head Investigation Of Ballot Box Removal
Wausau mayor removed drop box. Toney previously argued the boxes were illegal.
Wausau Mayor Doug Diny removes a ballot drop box from outside Wausau City Hall on Sept. 22, 2024. Photo obtained by WPR
Fond du Lac District Attorney Eric Toney has been appointed to oversee the investigation of Wausau Mayor Doug Diny’s removal of a ballot drop box ahead of the 2024 election.
Toney, who ran as a Republican for state attorney general in 2022, previously praised a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision banning the use of drop boxes.
Diny made national news in Sept. 2024 when he had himself photographed wearing a hard hat while carting a locked ballot drop box away from the steps of Wausau City Hall. The drop box was empty of ballots at the time.
The photo-op came came two months after the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority reversed a near-total ban on the receptacles that the then-conservative-controlled court had put in place two years prior.
At the time, Diny said he told WPR he felt the box wasn’t secure and didn’t accept legal opinions stating that election administration is solely at the discretion of the city clerk. Wausau Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde said the removal would be investigated as an “election irregularity.”
In October, the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation, or DCI, led by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, took over the investigation of Diny’s actions.
A statement issued Wednesday by Marathon County District Attorney Kyle Mayo said “due to conflicts of interest” he requested the appointment of an outside special prosecutor and that Toney had agreed to serve.
Mayo said Toney will review the DCI’s work and make “any appropriate determinations” related to the findings.
“The investigation remains active and ongoing with possible follow-up investigative efforts needed,” Mayo said.
Toney did not respond to a request for comment on his appointment. In an email to WPR, Diny said he also wouldn’t be commenting.
Toney hailed 2022 ban on ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin
The use of ballot drop boxes in Wisconsin and other states became a political flashpoint after President Donald Trump was defeated by former President Joe Biden in 2020. Afterward, Trump and his supporters made unfounded claims that drop boxes were a source of election fraud.
In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s former conservative majority ruled that drop boxes were illegal in Wisconsin, which prompted Trump to pressure state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to decertify the 2020 election results. Vos rejected those efforts.
On the same day ballot boxes were deemed illegal, Toney hailed the conservative justices’ decision in a social media post. The comment came amid his unsuccessful Republican campaign for Wisconsin Attorney General, in which he was narrowly defeated by Democratic AG Josh Kaul.
The WI Supreme Court followed the law in preventing ballot drop boxes for the April election and I look forward to the Court making this decision permanent with a future ruling. #Election2022 #wiright https://t.co/LtLw5qHxAq
— Eric Toney (@EricJToney) February 11, 2022
“The WI Supreme Court followed the law in preventing ballot drop boxes for the April election and I look forward to the court making this decision permanent with a future ruling,” Toney wrote.
While Toney doesn’t appear to have publicly commented on the Supreme Court’s liberal majority reversing the drop box ban in July 2024, he spoke days later at a Republican National Committee “Protect the Vote” rally in Waukesha.
Toney told attendees “we’ve sent people to jail for voter fraud” in Fond du Lac County and called for Republican poll watchers and poll workers to help secure the results of the November presidential election. RNC co-chair Michael Whatley spoke shortly after Toney and said the party didn’t want “ballots going into drop boxes, we want them going into mailboxes, and we want them by election day.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus of political science and legal studies, Howard Schweber, told WPR it appears that Toney and Diny are on the same side with regard to absentee ballot drop boxes. He said it’s possible there are “no politics involved here at all” — but it doesn’t look like it.
“I’m going to lay my cards on the table and say that in Wisconsin, in the present day, on issues involving voting, I find that unlikely,” Schweber said.
And with Toney considering another run for attorney general in 2026, Schweber said being put in charge of the Wausau drop box investigation “could be a chance for him to establish some additional bona fides” among conservatives.
Republican DA Toney will oversee investigation into Wausau ballot drop box removal was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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