The Trump campaign on Tuesday filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. The campaign is effectively asking the high court to review lower court decisions in the Donald J. Trump, et al vs. Joseph R. Biden, et al. case where the Wisconsin State Supreme Court allowed allegedly illegal absentee ballots to be counted. Trump's team claims those ballots were illegally counted.
The president's campaign said the case originally brought to light a number of issues including:
- More than 28,000 votes were counted from people who failed to provide identification by abusing the state’s “indefinitely confined” status, including two Biden electors.
- Nearly 6,000 absentee ballots were counted that were contained in incomplete and altered ballot envelopes that the Wisconsin statutes expressly forbid.
- More than 17,000 ballots were collected by hand, in direct contravention of the statutes, in Democrat-sponsored events in Madison in September and October.
The petition cites the Wisconsin State Legislature's concerns about voter fraud arising from absentee ballots.
"The legislature finds that voting is a constitutional right, the vigorous exercise of which should be strongly encouraged. In contrast, voting by absentee ballot is a privilege exercised wholly outside the traditional safeguards of the polling place," the petition states. "The legislature finds that the privilege of voting by absentee ballot must be carefully regulated to prevent the potential for fraud or abuse; to prevent overzealous solicitation of absent electors who may prefer not to participate in an election; to prevent undue influence on an absent elector to vote for or against a candidate or to cast a particular vote in a referendum; or other similar abuses."
One of the other issues at hand, according to the petition, is whether or not voters had to provide photo identification, as required by state law. Under state law, a voter has to be considered disabled in order to certify their identity for the purpose of voting.
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Drop boxes were allegedly used to collect absentee ballots and ballots were allowed to be curated without witness information, both of which are violations of Wisconsin law.
“Regrettably, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in their 4-3 decision, refused to address the merits of our claim. This ‘Cert Petition’ asks them to address our claims, which, if allowed, would change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin," the campaign's lead attorney in Wisconsin, Jim Troupis, said in a statement. “Three members of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, agreed with many of the President’s claims in written dissents from that court’s December 14 order.”
The Trump campaign filed a similar petition against Pennsylvania earlier this month.
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