US elections: Judge marvels at Trump’s defiance in Wisconsin

On Thursday, a federal judge questioned President Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Wisconsin, saying siding with Trump would be “the most notable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary. “.

Trump is making extraordinary attempts to overturn Biden’s victory with a pair of lawsuits in Wisconsin, in federal and state courts. Hearings on both cases were scheduled for Thursday. In the state case, Trump wants to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and in the federal case he wants to give the Republican Party-controlled Legislature the power to name Trump as the winner.

Early in the arguments in the federal case, Federal District Judge Brett Ludwig marveled at Trump’s request.

“It does not escape me that this is a political case, obviously, and that the reparation that has been requested, if that reparation were granted, would be a most remarkable procedure and probably the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or of the federal judiciary, “Ludwig said.

Trump’s appointee Ludwig had previously called Trump’s request “strange” and “very strange.”

Trump claims that the elections were not conducted properly and that the risks of voter fraud increased because the polls were unstaffed, voting by mail was widely used, and voters who said they were indefinitely confined were allowed to cast their vote in absentia. without showing a valid vote. photographic identification.

Trump’s attorneys are urging the courts to act quickly so he can appeal any adverse ruling before members of the Electoral College meet Monday and cast Wisconsin’s 10 votes in favor of Biden. Attorneys for Governor Tony Evers and the bipartisan state election commission say the cases are unfounded and should be dismissed.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Wisconsin dismissed another lawsuit filed by the La Crosse County Republican Party chairman that argued there was massive fraud that justified the court declaring Trump the winner. Similar lawsuits, all filed by former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell, have been dismissed in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.

Trump’s state lawsuit made Wisconsin the only state that missed Tuesday’s safe harbor deadline, meaning Congress has to accept electoral votes that will be cast Monday and sent to Capitol Hill to be counted on January 6. Failure to meet the deadline will not deprive Wisconsin of its 10 electoral votes.

Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes. Those certified results, which came after a Trump-ordered recount in the state’s two largest Democratic counties, were later challenged by Trump in the two lawsuits he filed in Wisconsin.

Of the roughly 50 lawsuits filed across the country challenging the Nov. 3 vote, Trump has lost more than 35 and the rest are pending, according to an Associated Press tally.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has already once refused to hear Trump’s lawsuit, saying it must first go through lower courts. But the court is likely to have the case before it again soon.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is controlled 4-3 by conservative justices. One of them, Judge Brian Hagedorn, has joined Liberals three times in deciding not to accept Trump’s lawsuit and two others brought by Trump allies seeking to overturn the election.

“The relief petitioners are seeking is the most dramatic invocation of the judiciary that I have ever seen,” Hagedorn wrote in denying a Wisconsin Voters Alliance case.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack, a conservative, said invalidating 221,000 votes, as Trump’s lawsuit seeks, “may be out of reach for a number of reasons.”

In the state case, Trump wants to disqualify absentee votes cast early and in person, saying a proper written request for votes was not made; absentee votes cast by individuals who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers in Madison parks; and absentee ballots where the clerks filled in the missing information on the ballot envelopes. – AP