Trump Allies Sue To Throw Out Wisconsin Election

Mayor Tom Barrett and his wife Kris Barrett place their ballots in a drop box. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Supporters of President Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign have filed an emergency petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stop the state from certifying its election results.

The petition takes issue with 156,807 Wisconsin votes, of which it says some are illegal votes counted and others are legal votes not yet counted.

The majority of the votes, 96,437, are from voters that declared themselves “indefinitely confined.” The lawsuit says they are not. The petition says the voters were able to use the declaration to bypass the state’s voter identification requirement and request an absentee ballot.

A remedy proposed under the suit is to have the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Legislature pick the state’s Electoral College electors.

Statement of relief sought

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is scheduled to certify the results on December 1st, following the completion of recounts of Milwaukee and Dane counties. The Trump campaign wired the state $3 million to cover the estimated cost of that work.

The suit issues the same three challenges the Trump campaign has used to challenge approximately 160,000 absentee ballots in Milwaukee County alone – improperly declared indefinitely confined voters, clerks completing addresses on witness signatures (mismatched ink) and in-person absentee ballots that don’t have a separate application.

In each case, the Milwaukee County Election Commission has said the municipal clerks and voters complied with the law and Wisconsin Elections Commission guidance. A similar process is playing out in Dane County during its recount.

The petition was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance and over a dozen individual Wisconsin voters.

The petition was filed by attorneys Erick Kaardal, special counsel to Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society and Gregory M. Erickson. Kaardal was a member of the legal team that unsuccessfully sought to have Kanye West placed on the ballot.

The petition also objects to an approximately $6 million grant by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to five Wisconsin cities to support executing an election during the pandemic. The petition alleges that the cities did not have standing to accept the funds. A court challenges to this funding has previously been defeated.

The suit repeatedly misspells the name of City of Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Claire Woodall-Vogg as Woodall-Voog.

For more on the arguments surrounding the absentee envelope challenges, see our coverage from Monday.

A full copy of the petition can be found on Urban Milwaukee.