Trump Files Second Suit Seeking to Throw Out Wisconsin Election
Trump campaign targets five cities, alleging voter fraud.
Donald Trump‘s campaign has filed a second lawsuit seeking to throw out Wisconsin’s election results. It’s the fifth such suit that seeks to give Trump the win in Wisconsin. And the arguments in the new Trump suit center around five Wisconsin cities – Milwaukee, Madison, Kenosha, Green Bay and Racine.
The first Trump suit, filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, challenges absentee ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties, the state’s most populous counties and those that produced the biggest margins for Joe Biden.
Both the state and federal suits challenge absentee ballots from at least three different categories: in-person absentee ballots on the basis of an insufficient application; applications and absentee ballots cast by voters who declared themselves “indefinitely confined,” on the basis that clerks provided improper guidance; absentee ballots where clerks completed the witness address (commonly called “mismatched ink” envelopes) on the basis that the address is incomplete and the ballot should be rejected.
But the federal suit adds a category the state suit avoided: drop boxes. It uses an argument advanced by a suit filed last Friday by Karen Mueller that the drop boxes were illegal and all ballots submitted via them should be rejected. The Trump suit acknowledges that the state does not have records of how the absentee ballots were returned.
The campaign, as it has in other states, also challenges that ballots were counted outside the visibility of observers.
The suit confuses the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County when it criticizes a grant that five Wisconsin cities received to support pandemic-related changes to election equipment and staffing, and it alleges a high turnout as a result of an “unlawful absentee-ballot expansion plan.” Past challenges to the $6.3 million grant have been rejected. The City of Milwaukee’s 2020 turnout was nearly identical to its 2016 turnout.
The suit also includes Milwaukee City Clerk Jim Owczarski as a defendant. And clerks do administer elections in Wisconsin, except in state-defined cities of the first class (Milwaukee is the only such place). Owczarski is in charge of recording Common Council votes, but it is Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg that administers the city’s elections. The suit does name Woodall-Vogg, and unlike the two other suits that name her, Trump’s lawyers managed to spell her last name correctly.
Trump’s suit also names the Wisconsin Elections Commission and its members, except it forgot one. For reasons unknown, the suit failed to include Julie M. Glancey, a Democratic appointee, on the list alongside the five other commissioners.
Trump’s new suit, like all the others, seeks to have the election turned over to the Republican-controlled state Legislature.
The federal suit by was filed by attorneys William Bock III, James A. Knauer and Kevin D. Koons, all of Indianapolis-based Kroger, Gardis & Regas.
Attorney Sidney Powell, who filed a suit that alleges “massive election fraud” in Wisconsin, has amended her filing to drop a request for security footage from a Michigan facility and a plaintiff that never granted her approval to be listed.
A full copy of the Trump suit can be found on Urban Milwaukee.
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More about the 2020 General Election
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- GOP State Legislators Asked Pence to Not Certify Election - Melanie Conklin - Jan 14th, 2021
- Rep. Hintz: Condemns Republican Legislators’ Lies and Dangerous Rhetoric - State Rep. Gordon Hintz - Jan 14th, 2021
- Tiffany, Fitzgerald Object To Some Biden Electors - Shawn Johnson - Jan 7th, 2021
- Sen. Baldwin: “It’s Disgraceful” - Urban Milwaukee - Jan 6th, 2021
- Rep Moore Blames Trump for Today’s Chaos - Urban Milwaukee - Jan 6th, 2021
- Rep. Gallagher: “We are witnessing absolute banana republic crap in the United States Capitol right now” - Urban Milwaukee - Jan 6th, 2021
- Back in the News: Cleta Mitchell Resigns from Foley Firm - Bruce Murphy - Jan 5th, 2021
- Gallagher Assails GOP Push to Nullify Election - Rob Mentzer - Jan 5th, 2021
- Back in the News: Foley Firm Faces Blowback on Trump Call - Bruce Murphy - Jan 5th, 2021
Read more about 2020 General Election here
More about the Trump's Election Lawsuits
- Federal Judge Tears Apart Election Lawsuit - Graham Kilmer - Jan 4th, 2021
- Op Ed: Hagedorn Wisconsin’s Person of The Year - John Torinus - Dec 30th, 2020
- Trump Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Overturn Wisconsin’s Election - Graham Kilmer - Dec 29th, 2020
- Trump campaign: Takes Wisconsin constitutional fight to Supreme Court - Donald Trump - Dec 29th, 2020
- Wisconsin Republicans Join New Federal Election Lawsuit - Jeramey Jannene - Dec 23rd, 2020
- Justices Face Anti-Semitic, Misogynist Attacks After Trump Ruling - Ruth Conniff - Dec 18th, 2020
- Ron Johnson Parrots Trump’s Rejected Legal Arguments - Shawn Johnson - Dec 17th, 2020
- Murphy’s Law: Why Republicans Won’t End Election Complaints - Bruce Murphy - Dec 14th, 2020
- Statement of Republican Electors Meeting - Republican Party of Wisconsin - Dec 14th, 2020
- AG Kaul Issues Statement on Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling on the Challenge to Wisconsin’s Election Results - Josh Kaul - Dec 14th, 2020
Read more about Trump's Election Lawsuits here