Trump Lawsuit Would Throw Out Only Milwaukee and Dane County Votes

President Donald Trump‘s campaign filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin Tuesday morning seeking to throw out at least 221,000 ballots. The suit targets only voters in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the state’s two largest counties that both went overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.

The expected move comes after the campaign paid for a $3 million recount in only the two counties. Wisconsin Elections Commission chair Ann Jacobs and Governor Tony Evers took the necessary procedural steps Monday to certify the election results, allowing Trump’s lawsuit to be filed.

“During the recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties, we know with absolute certainty illegal ballots have unduly influenced the state’s election results,” said Trump counsel Jim Troupis in a press release. One of the ballots the campaign is seeking to disqualify is an absentee vote Troupis himself cast.

The campaign is challenging ballots in four categories, similar to arguments made during the recount.

The largest category it is targeting is in-person absentee ballots (commonly called “early voting”) because it says there is not a separate application. During the recount, Milwaukee County officials noted that the ballot envelope has the words “application” printed on it and a special mark to note that the voter requested it. Early voting is a long-standing practice in Wisconsin elections.

The campaign is also seeking to have ballots cast by voters who declared themselves “indefinitely confined” tossed. The declaration allows a voter who cannot leave home to skip the voter identification requirements of a traditional absentee request. Multiple clerks encouraged voters to make the declaration in March while the state’s Safer at Home order was in effect before a court ruled the guidance was improper.

Trump is also seeking to have all “mismatched ink” absentee envelopes and related votes tossed. In this case, poll workers, under state commission guidance, completed addresses on absentee envelopes where the witness may have written a street address, but not a city or state (or similar partial address scenarios). To accept the ballots the witness signature was required to be present and the partial address had to be trackable to a specific, valid address.

The lawsuit offers a very specific fourth challenge. The City of Madison held Democracy in the Park voting events on two weekends in advance of in-person absentee voting. At the events voters were able to return previously-requested ballots to clerks, but were not able to request, receive and return a ballot on the same day, as they would during in-person absentee voting. Wisconsin Elections Commission executive director Meagan Wolfe said in October she didn’t believe the event violated any laws. The campaign says any ballots returned during the events should be tossed.

Biden currently leads Trump by 20,695 votes in Wisconsin.

The Trump suit joins two others previously filed. One, filed last Tuesday, makes many similar arguments to the Trump campaign. A second, filed Friday, challenges all ballots returned via drop boxes.

The Electoral College is scheduled to meet on December 14th. Congress is to meet to count the votes on January 6th.