The Sconi

The Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by President Donald J. Trump challenging the presidential election results in the state.

Justice Brian Hagedorn authored the majority opinion. Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky joined with Hagedorn. Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley and Patience D. Roggensack dissented and authored their own dissenting opinion. 

“In the 2020 presidential election, the initial Wisconsin county canvasses showed that Wisconsin voters selected Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris as the recipients of Wisconsin's electoral college votes,” the Dec. 14 opinion states. “The petitioners...bring an action under Wis. Stat. § 9.01 (2017-18) seeking to invalidate a sufficient number of Wisconsin ballots to change Wisconsin's certified election results.”

Hagedorn wrote that Trump’s campaign wants to invalidate the ballots of more than 220,000 Wisconsin voters in Dane and Milwaukee Counties.

The Trump campaign argued that there were four categories of ballots it objected to, including striking ballots cast by voters who claimed indefinitely confined status, those who used an in-person absentee ballot, those who allegedly had witness information added to their ballots and those whose votes were collected via “Democracy in the Park” events.

“We conclude the Campaign is not entitled to the relief it seeks,” Hagedorn wrote. “The challenge to the indefinitely confined voter ballots is meritless on its face, and the other three categories of ballots challenged fail under the doctrine of laches.”

Hagedorn wrote that election claims like this “must be brought expeditiously.”

“The Campaign waited until after the election to raise selective challenges that could have been raised long before the election,” Hagedorn wrote. “We conclude the challenge to indefinitely confined voter ballots is without merit, and that laches bars relief on the remaining three categories of challenged ballots. The Campaign is not entitled to relief, and therefore does not succeed in its effort to strike votes and alter the certified winner of the 2020 presidential election.”