(The Center Square) – After the Wisconsin Elections Commission dismissed a complaint by a Democratic National Committee employee seeking to have Green Party candidate Jill Stein removed from the ballot, the plaintiff has now gone one step further and filed an emergency appeal with the state Supreme Court.
Court documents announce that it has accepted the case on Thursday and is requiring the plaintiff to provide additional information, a move that prompted two Supreme Court justices to dissent.
“The majority issues an unprecedented order directing plaintiff to provide the court within two hours with defendants’ contact information, which is not currently on the record because no one has appeared in court on behalf of any of those parties. How would plaintiff – an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – know the name or address of ‘an attorney or other representative of each defendant authorized to receive service of orders from this Court?'” Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote in her dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court’s majority opinion.
“To my knowledge, the Court has never before issued orders before the parties had appeared. Plaintiff filed this original complaint on Monday, filed it with the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday, and filed it with the Wisconsin Green Party just yesterday. The majority goes beyond its neutral role by arguing the case on behalf of the DNC, seemingly allowing an expedited review of this original complaint. Other parties who filed original motions have received no such preferential treatment from this Court.”
Presiding Judge Annette Kinsgland Ziegler joined the dissenting opinion.
Wisconsin Democratic National Committee Deputy Operations Director David Strange filed the challenge to Stein’s candidacy last week, The Center Square previously reported.
The lawsuit argued that the Green Party did not have qualified presidential electors because it had not nominated candidates for the Wisconsin Senate or House of Representatives until the August 13 primary election.
WEC attorney Angela O’Brien Sharpe dismissed Strange’s lawsuit on Friday, arguing that the commissioners named as defendants in the suit could not decide a matter brought against them without a conflict of interest. Strange immediately appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Stein won more than 31,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2016 – more than Donald Trump in that state. The state Supreme Court disqualified Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins from the ballot in 2020 after the Supreme Court could not agree on whether he had submitted enough valid signatures.
Recent polls in swing states show that many Democratic voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate who promises to stop providing weapons to Israel. They also said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate if Biden could negotiate a ceasefire.
Stein, who has called the war between Israel and Hamas a “genocide,” criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s Israel policy, a weak point in Harris’ campaign.
“The DNC seems to believe that if they remove Jill Stein from the ballot, their voters will have no choice but to vote for Democrats,” said Dr. Michael White, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. “But members of the Green Party have expressed an intention to vote against Democrats in lower-seat elections. That will not win Democrats any voters. It will further fragment the progressive electorate. The solution to the Democrats’ dilemma is not voter suppression like the Republicans do. The solution is ranked choice voting. Democrats want to make sure Green votes are not counted. Greens want to make sure every vote is counted.”
