Wisconsin Supreme Court Rejects Trump Lawsuit to Overturn Election Results

US President Donald Trump takes part in a working lunch with governors on workforce freedo
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Hannah Knudsen

The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from President Donald Trump’s team seeking to invalidate over 200,000 ballots, which they suspected were illegal, on Monday in a 4-3 decision.

The lawsuit focused on roughly 220,000 ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties, asking the court to “reverse the determinations of the Dane County Board of Canvassers and the Milwaukee County Elections Commission with respect to four categories of ballots it argues were unlawfully cast,” per the court:

The challenges raised by the Campaign in this case, however, come long after the last play or even the last game; the Campaign is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began. Election claims of this type must be brought expeditiously. The Campaign waited until after the election to raise selective challenges that could have been raised long before the election. We conclude the challenge to indefinitely confined voter ballots is without merit, and that laches bars relief on the remaining three categories of challenged ballots. The Campaign is not entitled to relief, and therefore does not succeed in its effort to strike votes and alter the certified winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn joined the court’s liberal justices in rejecting the lawsuit, with the justice concluding that the challenge comes “long after the last play or even the last game; the (Trump) Campaign is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began.”

“The Campaign is not entitled to relief, and therefore does not succeed in its effort to strike votes and alter the certified winner of the 2020 presidential election,” he concluded.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack, who penned the dissent, argued that the majority “does not bother addressing what the boards of canvassers did or should have done, and instead, four members of this court throw the cloak of (timing) over numerous problems that will be repeated again and again, until this court has the courage to correct them.”

The ruling follows U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig dismissing the challenge Saturday.

“A sitting president who did not prevail in his bid for reelection has asked for federal court help in setting aside the popular vote on disputed issues of election administration, issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred,” Ludwig said.

“This court allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits,” he ruled.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, giving him the state’s ten electoral votes.

In a Sunday Twitter thread, Trump said swing states cannot legally certify the votes as either complete or correct due to massive voter fraud, citing glitches, ballot harvesting, non-resident voters, fake ballots, and votes for pay. This occurred, the president said, in places such as “Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere.”

“In all Swing State cases, there are far more votes than are necessary to win the State, and the Election itself,” he added. “Therefore, VOTES CANNOT BE CERTIFIED. THIS ELECTION IS UNDER PROTEST!”

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