Election Deniers Want AI Cameras to Stream Footage of Ballot Dropboxes

Engelbrecht has also said the group is looking to roll out dropbox monitoring in multiple states, and mentioned Michigan as a possible location, though most of her focus appears to be on Wisconsin.

In her interview with Wallnau, Engelbrecht added that she was working with “three influential sheriffs” in Wisconsin, though didn’t name them.

WIRED contacted two dozen sheriffs from Wisconsin’s largest counties, but did not find a single one who was going to be part of the monitoring effort. Engelbrecht and Truth the Vote did not respond to multiple requests for comment from WIRED to name the sheriffs who have agreed to be part of the program.

“True the Vote has reached out to the Sheriff’s Office regarding ideas as they relate to election integrity and possible law violations,” Deputy Inspector Patrick R. Esser, from the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department, tells WIRED. “True the Vote proposed the idea of donating cameras to the sheriff’s office to monitor election sites, however, the obstacles associated with that idea made it impractical.”

While most sheriff offices WIRED contacted did not respond to requests for comment, a number, including offices in Buffalo County and Polk County, said they had not even heard about the dropbox initiative. “I was unaware of the plan and will not be participating,” Sheriff Mike Osmond from Buffalo County tells WIRED. “I am not sure if they are legal or not but do not have interest in implementing such a program.”

In her newsletter this week, Engelbrecht signaled that the group may have been unsuccessful in recruiting enough sheriffs, writing that they would provide cameras to “sheriffs where possible, other individuals where necessary.”

It’s also not clear that sheriffs would even have jurisdiction over the dropboxes because they are county officials and elections are not run by county officials in Wisconsin.

“We’re a little different than some states,” says Ann Jacobs, chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which is responsible for administering elections in the state. “In Wisconsin our elections are actually run at the municipal level. So we have 1,850, approximately, municipal clerks who run municipal elections.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision in July, the Wisconsin Electoral Commission put in place guidance for clerks on how to implement dropboxes. “The guidance does not prohibit live streaming of ballot drop boxes, and there is no such prohibition in Wisconsin law,” Riley Vetterkind, the public information officer for the Wisconsin Electoral Commission tells WIRED.

However, if such monitoring interferes with voting, then that could result in criminal charges that carry penalties of up to six months in prison.

“It really depends on what they do with the information that they glean, and my hope is that they’re not going to go out and attack voters, although I suspect that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” says Jacobs.

The claims made in the 2000 Mules conspiracy film centered on voters who placed more than one ballot in dropboxes. However, Jacobs points out that voters in Wisconsin are permitted to place more than one ballot in a dropbox if they are doing so for a disabled or infirmed family member, which could lead to tensions with dropbox monitors should confusion about that allowance occur.

It is also unclear where these cameras would be located, given that they would need to be in situ permanently to provide 24-hour coverage. “What they can’t do is go and just attach a camera to, you know, a city of Milwaukee library and focus it on a dropbox,” says Jacobs. “I suppose in some places, maybe they could figure it out, but I don’t think there’s many places that I can think of where that would actually work.”