Trump Campaign Filing Lawsuit Alleging Major Absentee Ballot 'Abuse'
Even though Wisconsin has officially certified the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election, President Donald Trump’s campaign is still battling over how the vote was conducted and will file a massive lawsuit Tuesday, according to a published report.
The lawsuit, which will be filed in Wisconsin Supreme Court, alleges there was misconduct connected with absentee ballots that could impact as many 220,000 ballots, according to Fox News.
A recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties ended Sunday with Democrat Joe Biden increasing his margin over Trump.
Numerous affidavits testifying to various types of election fraud have been filed in courts in several swing states, and the affidavits indicate that those who witnessed conduct believe that fraud took place. However, those allegations have yet to be proven in court.
Former Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Jim Troupis, who leads the Trump campaign’s legal effort in that state, said the recount was a window that revealed much about what went wrong with the election.
“Exposing exactly how the election processes were abused in Wisconsin holds enormous value for this election beyond a victory for President Trump, but the fact is, our state’s electoral votes likely won’t change the overall outcome,” Troupis told Fox News. “Regardless, we’re demonstrating that the results of this election unequivocally ought to be questioned.”
He criticized Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, for certifying the results before all the lawsuits have been resolved.
“With Governor Evers’ premature certification, he is saying the president of the United States has no right to go to court in order to have illegal ballots examined,” Troupis said. “He’s not saying we have a frivolous lawsuit — he is saying we have no right to judicial review. That’s another level of bad.”
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, representing plenty of Democrats and Republicans, and I will not back down when it comes to upholding the law or protecting the integrity of our elections,” he told Fox News. “We, as good lawyers, don’t back down, and if we do, our republic is done.”
The outlet reported that the lawsuit will focus on “a lack of transparency and credibility on part of local election officials and their willful disregard of the law on multiple occasions” and said the state’s laws and processes gave it the “unique ability” to “illustrate this abuse with precision.”
The Wisconsin Election Commission and city clerks in Milwaukee and Madison “willfully disregarded the current statute and made conscious efforts to circumvent Wisconsin election law,” which meant many votes cast were “well outside of the bounds of Wisconsin law,” the lawsuit says.
The Trump campaign alleges that officials “accepted ballots without the required absentee applications on file.”
“The Wisconsin State Legislature has explicitly required an application,” a Trump campaign official told Fox News.
The official said an application was “mandatory” and “any ballots without an application or with an incomplete application are not to be counted.”
I’m not fighting for me, I’m fighting for the 74,000,000 million people (not including the many Trump ballots that were “tossed”), a record for a sitting President, who voted for me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020
Contrary to state law that requires ballots to be sent back to voters to fix errors, city clerks were “illegally altering ballot envelopes themselves,” according to the lawsuit.
“In many instances, witness addresses were left off of the envelopes and clerks, using their own knowledge or searching in unknown databases, filled in the information themselves. According to the statute, this is illegal,” a campaign official told Fox News.
“If the certificate or envelope is missing a witness address, the ballot cannot be counted until the voter corrects the error — plain and simple,” the official said. “Instead, election officials decided to take the law into their own hands.
“These ballots were fraudulently completed and counted, and the illegal ballots should not count toward the certified vote totals.”
The lawsuit also alleges elections officials wrongly allowed voters to end-run state voter ID laws and receive absentee voter status.
The president’s campaign said Madison created “unlawful polling locations at over 200 locations throughout the city’s Democracy in the Park voting events” and the ballots submitted during these events “were illegally cast.”
“What’s truly alarming about these events is that not only did they not follow the law, but Joe Biden’s campaign encouraged this unlawful voting,” a campaign official told Fox News.
The official said the Biden campaign “advertised these events as opportunities to vote, telling voters to bring their completed ballot to turn in or their incomplete ballot to have a so-called ‘poll worker’ serve as a witness before you fill it out and turn it in.”
“This highlights inappropriate coordination between the Biden campaign and the city’s election officials,” the official said, adding that voters “are not allowed to turn in their absentee ballots anywhere other than designated polling locations.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
