In another post-election lawsuit, the Trump campaign is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to throw out more than 221,000 ballots in a bid to move the state’s 10 Electoral College votes into President Trump’s ledger.
The 28-page document was filed with the Supreme Court on Tuesday by Trump campaign lawyer Jim Troupis and outlined four main categories of ballots that are being contested. While the Trump campaign has had little success in its post-election lawsuits in other states, Troupis told the Washington Examiner in an interview that the case in Wisconsin was solid.
“I’m certainly confident it’s not going to be thrown out,” Troupis said. “This action addresses explicit legal violations.”
On Saturday, Wisconsin completed a recount initiated by the Trump campaign in two counties, Dane (home to Madison) and Milwaukee, which are both Democratic strongholds. The recount resulted in a net gain of 87 votes for President-elect Joe Biden, although the Tuesday lawsuit hinges on the fact that the campaign made several challenges during the recount that sought to have certain ballots tossed. Those challenges were denied by the Democratic-majority board of canvassers in each county and are the same ballots that the litigation now seeks to invalidate.
Troupis, a former circuit court judge, said that during the recount, the campaign was able to get the exact names of the people who the campaign claims voted illegally under state law. The campaign said that thousands of volunteers participated in the recount effort.
The lawsuit focuses on four main points: absentee ballots issued for in-person voting without applications, clerical editions of missing information on ballot envelopes, “involuntarily confined voters,” and “Democracy in the Park” events held in Dane County.
The first point alleges that absentee ballots were improperly disbursed during Wisconsin’s two-week in-person voting period. Voters in Dane and Milwaukee counties filled out their absentee ballots and then signed off on the ballot envelopes, which clerks have said constitutes the equivalent of an application. Trump’s team is arguing that the envelope is not the same as an application under state law, and thus, more than 170,000 of the early in-person ballots are unacceptable. It said some other municipalities required an application.
Secondly, the campaign is arguing that some 5,500 absentee ballot envelopes were improperly edited by clerks during the election because they were missing details such as the address of a ballot witness. Wisconsin state law stipulates that “if a certificate is missing the address of a witness, the ballot may not be counted.” The Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance that said clerks could correct addresses if they can find the information, although that guidance is not state law and the campaign contends that only the witness or voter can fix the information.
The third issue raised was that of “indefinitely confined” voters who can self-certify as such and don’t have to show photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot because they are confined to their residences. Clerks in the counties suggested in March that voters could list themselves as indefinitely confined because of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans sued, and the Supreme Court sided with the GOP and said the advice was “legally incorrect.” The campaign is asking that 28,395 absentee ballots claiming indefinitely confined status after March 25 should be tossed.
Finally, the campaign has taken aim at Madison’s “Democracy in the Park” events held in September and October, which featured more than 200 locations where poll workers served as witnesses and accepted mail-in absentee ballots. The campaign alleges they were done in contradiction of state law and amounted to in-person voting prior to the actual in-person voting period prescribed by law. That point would strike out more than 17,000 votes should the Supreme Court agree.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Wisconsin Elections Commission for comment about the lawsuit but did not immediately receive a response.
Gov. Tony Evers’s office directed the Washington Examiner to a statement he made on Monday when he certified the election, a move that the lawsuit seeks to void because it was done “prior to the closing of the post-recount appeal deadline.” In Evers’s statement, he described Wisconsin’s Nov. 3 election as “safe, fair, and efficient.”
Several Trump campaign lawsuits in battleground states have been rejected in the weeks after the election. Troupis said he expects the Trump campaign’s legal arguments to win out in court.
“The law is on our side in Wisconsin, and this lawsuit is the real deal,” he said.
As it stands, Biden won the Badger State by more than 20,000 votes — or just about a 0.6-point margin.
