President Donald Trump's campaign is leaving no stone unturned in its bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. As part of its attempt, the campaign has filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin, hoping to overrule President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state.
The move is the Trump campaign's latest long-shot court battle seeking to invalidate Biden's win in the presidential election. In its lawsuit, the campaign urges the Wisconsin Supreme Court to disqualify over 221,000 ballots in two of Wisconsin's most Democratic counties. Biden won the state by about 20,700 votes.
The suit asks the court to order the state’s elections commission and Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers not to include a myriad of absentee ballots, which the campaign deems "illegal." The plaintiffs, including the Trump campaign, Vice President Mike Pence, and the president himself, are requesting the court to block the election certification until those ballots are excluded from the final vote tally, CNBC reported.
The Trump campaign has either lost or withdrawn lawsuits in other key states filed to invalidate ballots for the president-elect. Skipping the lower courts, the new suit was filed just a day after state elections commission chair Ann Jacobs signed a determination of the win for Trump's Democrat opponent, giving him 10 Electoral College votes of Wisconsin.
Republicans called for Jacobs to resign over finalizing the state’s presidential election results, confirming that Biden won, Associated Press reported. With Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes, Biden is expected to win 306 votes in the Electoral College. Electoral College members will cast their votes on Dec. 14, based on their state's certified results.
Jacob’s confirmation comes after a recount in Dane and Milwaukee Counties did not result in any net gain of the president's vote. Trump's campaign ended up shelling out $3 million for those partial recounts.
According to the campaign, a pattern of actions improperly handled affects the election. Without directly calling it fraud, the campaign claims over 170,000 absentee ballots were counted improperly as they were issued to voters who did not submit a written application first.
The campaign announced the suit in a press release, claiming unlawful actions affected nearly 221,000 ballots, adding without evidence that fraud and abuse had changed the election outcome. Trump, who refuses to concede to Biden, has claimed he won the election by a lot.
Spearheaded by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Trump's legal team have made dubious claims of widespread voter fraud without offering any evidence in the courts. Their lawsuits focus on disputes over state election rules and whether errors on mail-in ballot envelopes should be enough to disqualify a vote.