Eagle Valley Times

Some local governments in key battleground states are setting up drop boxes for absentee ballots with grants from a non-profit organization, but Douglas County hasn't received a grant.

“The Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer’s office has not accepted any funding from the Center for Civic Life and Technology,” Dena Dawson, the county’s Election Administrator told the Eagle Valley Times.

The Center for Civic Life and Technology “pushes for left-of-center voting policies and election administration,” Influence Watch said on its website.

In the key battleground state of Wisconsin, the group has awarded grants to the cities of Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine, Spectrum News reported.

“From ensuring that polling places are open and following the latest public health guidelines to providing options for voters to easily and securely return absentee ballots, to making certain that the incredible people who step up to serve as poll workers are protected and well-compensated for their service, we’re proud to partner with the five largest cities in Wisconsin to deliver a smooth voting process that inspires confidence,” the center’s executive director, Tiana Epps-Johnson, said in a July statement on the organization's website.

As with most issues in 2020, drop boxes have become a partisan concern, particularly in battleground states.

Democrats are supporting drop boxes as an alternative for voters who don’t trust the United States Postal Service to deliver their ballots, Reuters reported. Republican officials are banning them in states such as Missouri.

President Trump's re-election campaign has sued states, including Pennsylvania – a battleground state – claiming that its receptacles will lead to fraud, Reuters and other news outlets have reported.

In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, signed Assembly Bill 4 on Aug. 4 expanding access to absentee ballots. It also allows senior citizens and voters with physical disabilities to have someone else complete their ballot and mail them in.

“Republican legislators, along with President Donald Trump, have repeatedly decried that practice as illegal ‘ballot harvesting,’” the Reno Gazette Journal reported.

Trump’s re-election campaign filed suit in federal court to block implementation of the legislation, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.

Under the law. every registered voter will receive a mail-in-ballot, the Gazette Journal said. The bill also requires each county to have at least one ballot drop box, the group Voting Rights Lab reported.