President Donald Trump filed an appeal on Wednesday asking the United States Supreme Court to declare the presidential election in Wisconsin “unconstitutional and void” and order the GOP state legislature to appoint the state’s electors.
According to a statement released by the president, the Wisconsin Elections Commission and election officials “implemented unauthorized, illegal absentee voting drop boxes, compelled illegal corrections to absentee ballot witness certificates by poll workers, and encouraged widespread voter misuse of ‘indefinitely confined’ status to avoid voter ID laws” as well as continued counting “invalid” ballots following election day.
These violations of election law, the statement continued, far surpass the 20,682 vote difference between Joe Biden and Trump in the state, giving the president standing to file the appeal.
“In Wisconsin, guardrails against fraud were repeatedly lowered by unelected bureaucrats who changed the rules on the eve of the election without authority to do so,” Trump’s counsel of record Bill Bock said. “We are asking the Court to find these last-minute changes unconstitutional and conclude that they make it impossible to determine which candidate received the most valid votes.”
“Nothing is more important to our national fabric and our future than integrity in our electoral process,” he added. “This lawsuit is one step in the direction of fairer, more transparent, more professional, and ultimately more reliable elections in America.”
In addition to the normal petition, Trump also filed a motion for expedited consideration with the hopes that the highest court in the land could take up the case before the electoral college certification process on Jan. 6 and the Jan. 20 inauguration.
The case was previously dismissed in November in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was without merit as well as filed too late. It also follows a dismissal ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court of the Trump campaign’s lawsuit over ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties. Despite the previous rulings, Trump’s attorneys continued to push the appeal as a move to preserve election integrity.
“President Trump continues to fight for the American people and election integrity,” Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said. “We have to restore integrity to our process through every legal and constitutionally viable mechanism. America has seen the extent of corruption in this election and is demanding swift resolution. We hope that state legislatures in Wisconsin and the five other states will not wait on a court order but exercise their plenary constitutional authority and we continue to appeal to them as well as seek judicial remedy.”
