The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden, ending Trump’s legal challenges in the battleground state, the Associated Press reported Monday about an hour before the Electoral College was to meet to cast the state’s 10 votes for Biden.
According to the AP, the court’s three liberal justices were joined by conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn to bring an end to Trump’s legal challenges in the state, saying it was without merit.
The president sought to have more than 221,000 ballots disqualified in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state’s two most heavily Democratic counties. Those were the only counties where Trump sought a recount, even though he lost statewide by just short of 21,000 votes, a margin of about 0.6%.
Hagedorn said the Trump campaign was “not entitled to the relief it seeks.”
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Hagedorn used a sports analogy when ruling against Trump, saying he should not have waited until his election loss was announced to raise his complaints.
“Our laws allow the challenge flag to be thrown regarding various aspects of election administration,” Hagedorn wrote. “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.”
Liberal justices Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky, who sided with Hagedorn, wrote separately to emphasize that there was no evidence of fraud in Wisconsin’s election.
“Wisconsin voters complied with the election rulebook,” Dallet and Karofksy said. “No penalties were committed and the final score was the result of a free and fair election.”
Trump wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes.
In the 4-3 ruling, the court ruled that Trump’s challenge to voters who were indefinitely confined was without merit and that the other claims came too late.
