Back in 2022, Racine, Wisconsin came up with an idea that would surely make voting with extreme ease among people. They launched a mobile voting van to schedule a primary election, and this was really awesome. This van actually traveled all around Racine for two weeks before the election, so voters could cast their votes in up to 21 different spots. The city was like, super easy to vote for people who, at times, have a tough time accessing the regular polling places.
They bought the van entirely with cash from an organization called Center for Tech and Civic Life, and oh yeah, that organization got most of its money from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. Some people, especially Republicans, were so upset about it and called the funds “Zuckerbucks.” Why? Because they’re saying that this is just a clear advantage for the Democratic party, and this is just against the law. And you should know that there is a Wisconsin law that says something like: “early voting locations may not favor one party over another, nor should they be particularly distant from the clerk’s office.” And sure enough, when things got heated, we saw this Wisconsin Mobile Voting Lawsuit in action.
Wisconsin state law says that early voting locations should not favor one political party over another, and they should be as close as possible to the clerk’s office. However, the city believed the van followed the law because it served the whole community.
How the Wisconsin Mobile Voting Lawsuit Got Started
Here he was referring to Van, after using this van, Ken Brown, head of the Racine County Republican Party, complaining at the Wisconsin Elections Commission in August 2022; he went on and said that this van was violating state law, everything was unfair and the van was probably helping the Democrats since it was mostly operating in areas that leaned Democratic. We’ve seen similar rule-based legal challenges recently, such as the WIAA Softball Transfer Rules Lawsuit, where a student athlete’s eligibility was questioned due to a strict interpretation of school transfer policies. Days before the November 2022 elections, the elections commission went, like, no way, and dismissed Brown’s complaint. In their opinion, there would just not be enough evidence to show that this van had broken any rules.
Quite furious about that, Brown was like, I will sue. In January 2024, the Racine County judge was like: Yes, Brown’s right, this van is illegal under Wisconsin’s election laws, and that was a huge deal. Then, the matter was just forwarded to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, kind of screwing the normal appeals procedure.
What the Wisconsin Supreme Court Decided
In February 2025, the Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a monumental, ultimate decision, but guess what? It was no such thing as what people expected; the court, like, did not actually even say if the van was legal or not. Instead, they were kinda asked the big WHY question. Well, does Ken Brown even have the right to sue? The Court was like, in a super close split (4-3), Ken Brown wasn’t really hurt by this van, so he didn’t have the legal standing to bring this case.
Then we heard some words from Justice Jill Karofsky, who wrote for the majority, went on to say that “just being mad about something doesn’t mean that you should file a lawsuit right away!” And the way this case turned out so far, it could be that you see those mobile voting vans in the future.
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Read related cases in our Other Major Lawsuits & Disputes section.
