Sidney Powell Files Suit to Overturn State Election

Litigious attorney Sidney Powell has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s presidential election. The attorney, who as recently as last month was directly part of Donald Trump‘s legal team, has filed a number of similar suits regarding election results in other states with little success.

“The fraud was executed by many means, but the most fundamentally troubling, insidious, and egregious ploy was the systemic adaptation of old-fashioned ‘ballot-stuffing,'” wrote Powell in her complaint that describes “massive election fraud.”

The volume of cases she is filing appears to be causing issues. One of the things Powell demands the court provide is: “immediate production of 48 hours of security camera recording of all rooms used in the voting process at the TCF Center for November 3, 2020 and November 4, 2020.” A standard request for a lawsuit, except the TCF Center is the convention center in Detroit, Michigan and, logically, has nothing to do with Wisconsin’s election.

Milwaukee’s central count facility was on the fourth floor of the office building at 501 W. Michigan St. The city streamed all of the proceedings live and observers and media members were present in the room.

It’s not the first confusing item Powell has filed. A suit filed in Michigan alleges fraud in Edison County, but there is no Edison County in Michigan.

Powell’s Wisconsin suit centers on a conspiracy involving election software and equipment made by Dominion and Smartmatic. She singles out Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee for fraud.

But the city and county don’t use Dominion hardware or software, nor does Dane County. The audited equipment and software used by both counties is from Election Systems and Software (ES&S). In addition to the two recounted counties, the suit names La Crosse County, Waukesha County, St. Croix County, Washington County, Bayfield County and Ozaukee County, most of which were won by Trump.

Powell’s suit uses an argument she is using elsewhere. “Smartmatic and Dominion were founded by foreign oligarchs and dictators to ensure computerized ballot-stuffing and vote manipulation to whatever level was needed to make certain Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez never lost another election,” wrote Powell, outlining the conspiracy.

There are Wisconsin counties that use Dominion equipment, but earlier Tuesday, Republican-appointee to the Wisconsin Elections Commission Dean Knudson said no Wisconsin community uses Smartmartic software. As for Dominion, “We don’t have any evidence of Dominion machines changing votes or anything of the like,” said Knudson in discussing a statewide audit. “I have yet to see a credible claim of fraudulent activity during this election.”

Powell claims the software doesn’t allow you to see the fraud. But the state-led audit involved hand recounting ballots and comparing them to machine totals.

Her suit was filed on behalf of plaintiffs William Feehan of La Crosse and Derrick Van Orden (see below), a Republican candidate for Congress that lost his bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Ron Kind for Wisconsin’s third district U.S. House of Representatives seat.

In addition to the Dominion conspiracy theory, Powell’s suit uses the same arguments the Trump campaign and its allies have made in other lawsuits: indefinitely confined voters declared themselves so illegally, in-person absentee ballots are invalid and clerks illegally completed addresses on absentee ballots.

Similar to the first suit filed by the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, Powell repeatedly misspells Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Claire Woodall-Vogg‘s name as Claire Woodall-Voog. It also incorrectly names a number of county election commissions.

What remedy does Powell propose? She offers a slew of options. First, she asks for the courts to de-certify Wisconsin’s election results. Second, she offers that she would accept the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Governor Tony Evers picking Trump as the winner. Third, she says the court could also strike just absentee ballots she objects to, likely giving the election to Trump.

Powell is joined in her case by Wisconsin attorneys Dan Eastman and Michael D. Dean. Atlanta-based Lin Wood, attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse and a QANON conspiracy theory proponent, is also listed as a co-counsel. Eastman was part of Trump’s legal team at the Milwaukee County recount.

Powell’s suit is the fourth challenging Wisconsin’s election results. One, filed last Tuesday, makes many similar arguments to the Trump campaign. A second, filed Friday, challenges all ballots returned via drop boxes. And the Trump campaign filed its own lawsuit Tuesday, seeking to have 221,000 ballots tossed from Milwaukee and Dane counties.

A full copy of the lawsuit can be read on Urban Milwaukee.

UPDATE: Van Orden was surprised to see his name in the suit. “I learned through social media today that my name was included in a lawsuit without my permission,” Van Orden told WisPolitics’ reporter JR Ross.