A lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Green Bay seeks to throw out votes cast in Milwaukee, Dane and Menominee counties.
The plaintiffs — three Wisconsin voters from Door, Brown and Oconto counties — seek to exclude the results from Milwaukee, Dane and Menominee counties in the state’s final certification of results.
The lawsuit argues that election workers were overwhelmed by a flood of mailed ballots, and had less ability to review them for potential fraud. The plaintiffs also took issue with the Wisconsin Election Commission’s guidance to clerks allowing them to fix errors related to witness addresses.
The lawsuit claims that Wisconsin has a “history of voter fraud claims.” It also includes allegations of voter fraud from anonymous sources, including two Eau Claire voters who allegedly received ballots from the Wisconsin Elections Commission without requesting them.
Only 19 cases of possible fraud have occurred in total across the state in the 2020 presidential primary, 2020 partisan primary, 2019 spring election and 2018 general elections, according to a Wisconsin Elections Commission report.
The plaintiffs argue that if the defendants — which include the three counties’ clerks, Wisconsin Election Commissioners and Gov. Tony Evers — certify results from counties where “sufficient illegal ballots” were included, legal votes will be “unconstitutionally diluted by illegal votes.”
All three counties turned out heavily for President-elect Joe Biden. Dane and Menominee counties reported their canvassed votes on Nov. 13 and Nov. 6, respectively. Dane County cast 260,185 votes for Biden, and 1,303 votes were cast for Biden in Menominee County.
According to unofficial results, 317,251 votes were cast for Biden in Milwaukee County. Milwaukee has not canvassed their results as of Nov. 14. They have until Tuesday to report their official results to the state, which certifies all votes by Dec. 1.
Rep. LaKeshia Myers, D-Milwaukee, called the lawsuit “baseless” on Twitter and said it “seeks to erase the votes of many African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.”
If the votes in the three counties were thrown out, Trump would surpass Biden’s winning margin of about 20,000 votes.
The lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, but even if the state were to flip red, Biden would still have enough electoral votes to remain the President-elect.
The lawsuit is similar to others being filed by allies of President Donald Trump in other parts of the country, which have faced legal setbacks. Trump was handed legal losses in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan on Friday — three battleground states that have been called by the AP for Biden.
UPDATE: The plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their suit Monday morning.
Hope Karnopp is the news manager and dabbles in music reviews at The Daily Cardinal. She previously hosted the Cardinal Call for WORT-FM and edited state news.
