President Donald Trump is foisting yet another election lawsuit onto the United States Supreme Court.
According to The Wisconsin State Journal, the Trump campaign is contesting a dismissal of an elections lawsuit filed with the Badger State’s Supreme Court. In their complaint, the campaign claimed that Wisconsin ignored its own voting procedures in several counties.
However, the campaign’s lawsuit sought to discount ballots from only two counties—Dane and Milwaukee, which are among the most densely-populated and diverse in Wisconsin.
In a split, 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the Trump campaign’s lawsuit. The majority opinion found, among other things, that the plaintiffs were essentially trying to disenfranchise thousands of voters; one justice noted that the suit rank of racism, insofar as the campaign ignored the mostly-White counties which largely voted for the president.
But the Trump campaign’s challenges did not stop Wisconsin’s electors from casting their Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on December 14th.
Those votes—along with those cast by the other states—will be counted and certified by Congress next Wednesday, on January 6th.
Jim Troupis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, said he has been compelled by circumstance and justice to appeal the lost complaint.
“Regrettably, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in their 4-3 decision, refused to address the merits of our claim,” Troupis said in a statement. “This ‘Cert Petition’ asks them to address our claims which, if allowed, would change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin. Three members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, agreed with many of the President’s claims in written dissents from that Court’s December 14 order.”
The Wisconsin State Journal notes that the lawsuit initially demanded that tens of thousands of ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties be discarded due to form and submission errors.
The campaign, for instance, wanted to discount all absentee ballots cast early and in person, because such voters did not explicitly request absentee ballots; it also challenged whether Wisconsinites could claim “indefinitely confined” status as a valid reason for voting remotely rather than in physical polling stations.
However, the campaign’s latest request is that the U.S. Supreme Court invalidate Wisconsin’s election result outright—handing President Donald Trump the state’s electoral votes.
The lawsuit is but one of many the campaign has filed against heavily-contested battleground states. The Trump campaign has, for example, filed dozens of lawsuits between Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin, typically claiming that President-elect Joe Biden only won the popular vote in each state due to widespread voter fraud—a claim which has never been substantiated.
Sources
Donald Trump appeals Wisconsin election loss to U.S. Supreme Court
Join the conversation!