Washington: President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, alleging massive election fraud and major absentee ballot abuse, in a longshot attempt to overturn his Democratic rival Joe Biden’s win in the battleground state. Joe Biden was confirmed Monday as winner in Wisconsin following a partial recount.
The lawsuit includes four cases with ‘clear evidence of unlawfulness’, such as illegally altering absentee ballot envelopes, counting ballots that had no required application, overlooking unlawful claims of indefinite confinement, and holding illegal voting events called Democracy in the Park, the ‘Trump Campaign’ said.
“These unlawful actions affected no less than approximately 2,21,000 ballots out of over the three million ballots cast in Wisconsin,” the Trump Campaign said in a statement.
“As we have said from the very beginning of this process, we want all legal votes and only legal votes to be counted. Americans must be able to trust in our election results, and we not stop until we can ensure voters once again have faith in our electoral process,” said Rudy Giuliani, former New York City Mayor and personal attorney to President Trump.
The people of Wisconsin deserve election processes with uniform enforcement of the law, plain and simple, said Jim Troupis, counsel to the campaign.
“During the recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties, we know with absolute certainty illegal ballots have unduly influenced the state’s election results. Wisconsin cannot allow the over three million legal ballots to be eroded by even a single illegal ballot,” Giuliani informed.
“We will continue fighting on behalf of the American people to defend their right to a free and fair election by helping to restore integrity and transparency in our elections,” Troupis stated.
The lawsuit alleges that the Wisconsin Elections Commission directed municipal clerks to illegally alter incomplete absentee ballot envelopes contrary to Wisconsin law.
Clerks were instructed that they could rely on their own ‘personal knowledge’, or unspecified ‘lists or databases at his or her disposal’ to add in missing information on returned absentee ballots. Under Wisconsin law, incomplete absentee ballots must be corrected by the voter, and only the voter or they may not be counted, it alleged.
In another example, municipal clerks issued absentee ballots to voters without requiring the mandatory application, in direct conflict with Wisconsin’s absentee voting safeguards.
Wisconsin law expressly requires that absentee ballots may not be issued without receiving a written application requesting the ballot. Despite clear statute, clerks in Madison and Milwaukee issued thousands of absentee ballots without collecting a written application during the two-week in-person absentee voting period that ran from October 20, 2020, through November 1, 2020, the lawsuit alleged.
Voter identification is an essential requirement in Wisconsin to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots.