State High Court Rejects Green Party Appeal
Party won’t be allowed on ballot, clerks can begin mailing absentee ballots.
Wisconsin Supreme Court. Photo by Dave Reid.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has rejected an effort by Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins to get on the state’s November ballot.
Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn joined the court’s three liberals in ruling against Hawkins. The court also lifted its order barring clerks from mailing ballots, meaning those mailings can move forward.
The court ordered clerks to stop mailing ballots last week while it considered the case.
“For this court to order the printing and mailing of replacement ballots containing the petitioners’ names would create a substantial possibility of confusion among voters who had already received, and possibly returned, the original ballots,” read the majority opinion. “Under the circumstances presented here, it would be unfair both to Wisconsin voters and to the other candidates on the general election ballot to interfere in an election that, for all intents and purposes, has already begun.”
County clerks told the court last week that they had already printed at least 2.3 million ballots. Clerks are required by state law to begin mailing absentee ballots to voters on Thursday.
Democrats had feared that adding Hawkins to the ballot would take votes away from Joe Biden and assist President Donald Trump. Rapper Kanye West is still hoping to be added to the Wisconsin ballot.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Rejects Green Party Effort To Get On Presidential Ballot was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Clearly the majority considered the impact(s) of their decision. Is this a new era for the WISC?
If all parties were smart, a formal deadline for appeal submittal, consideration, etc that accounts for the printing lead time would be written into the statutes as clearly as the date to start the mailings. Then we don’t have to have this fight again…
Also, didn’t see it linked in article, so here’s the opinion: https://wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=288664
Oh, and it’s beyond rich that Roggensack’s dissent includes language about people operating on beliefs and not facts…you mean, exactly how her very court has acted over the past decade?
That’s the third time this past year I can recall Hagedorn not following the ‘own the libs’ doctrine expected of him. A trend worth keeping an eye on at least but I’m not going to get my hopes up for the new maps.
The Greens need a self- criticism session to discover why their actions in this case aligned with the goals of the right wing Agent Orange campaign. Amateurish electoral dreams can turn into nightmares, comrades. We Badgers dodged a bullet this time.