MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) - Anticipating another court challenge, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has certified the Green Party's Presidential candidate for this year's election - a move that could possibly take votes from Democrat Kamala Harris in the swing state.
After long discussion over an obscure rule involving electors, a 4-2 majority of commissioners voted to have Jill Stein of the Green Party on this year's ballot. Two commissioners, both personal injury lawyers, voted against certifying a ballot of candidates from the Democratic, Republican, Constitution, Libertarian and Green parties.
Dems don't want the Green Party on the ballot, considering the overlap in their voter bases. WEC chair Ann Jacobs had hoped to split the issue into two separate votes, one on the two main parties and one on the other three.
She believed the Green Party didn't follow a rule that requires someone to nominate an elector from the party to be present at a meeting at the Capitol on a Tuesday in October.
It was the argument made by the Democratic Party in a petition last week to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which terminated the case on Monday by deciding the lead plaintiff wasn't entitled to the relief he sought.
The Green Party has no one to nominate an elector for its party because it has no state officers or lawmakers on any ballot. Jacobs said all it needed to do was find 200 signatures to place a candidate on an Assembly ballot but did not.
Jacobs rejected claims this provision shouldn't be enforced because it never has been in the past.
"My concern is, we put them on the ballot. The first Tuesday in October comes, and they don't have the ability to nominate electors. And that's upheld (by a court)," she said.
"And now these people have voted for an ineligible party. They voted, they have cast their votes and are undermined. You can't undo it anymore. We used to allow people to spoil their ballots."
Commissioner Don Millis pointed to the concept of equitable estoppel, which protects parties from punishment from another party that contradicts how that party has acted in the past.
If no one has ever been punished for the law cited by the DNC, why start now, he asked.
"You have a right to rely on the government's decision not to enforce laws in the past," Millis said.
Regardless, the WEC's decision will certainly lead to a lawsuit by the DNC.
Stein and the Green Party were on the 2016 ballot in Wisconsin, and she won more than 31,000 votes.
Donald Trump won the state's electoral votes that year with a narrow victory of about 23,000 votes. Hillary Clinton certainly could have used some of the 31,000 votes Stein received in that election.
But the Green Party didn't make the 2020 ballot, helping Joe Biden defeat Trump by about 20,000 votes that year.
The DNC's first lawsuit got off to a wild start, with the liberal-controlled Supreme Court quickly ordering contact info for all parties who could receive judicial orders. Conservative justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley said the court was stepping beyond its neutral role to litigate the case for the DNC, the latest in hostility among justices.
"Other parties presenting original action petitions have not received such preferential treatment by this court," she wrote.
But the court, without much explanation, tossed the case, leaving the DNC to retry, possibly in Dane County Circuit Court.