MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) — Election officials in the state of Wisconsin on Friday rejected a request by a Democratic National Committee official to remove the Green Party’s presidential candidate from the ballot in the key swing state.
DNC staffer David Strange filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Wednesday, asking the commission to remove Jill Stein from the presidential ballot. Elections commission attorney Angela O’Brien Sharpe wrote to Strange on Friday that she dismissed the complaint because it named commissioners as defendants and they were not ethically able to rule on a matter brought against them.
The dismissal of the lawsuit clears the way for a possible lawsuit seeking to disqualify Stein from the election. A DNC spokesman had no immediate comment Friday. The Stein campaign team did not immediately respond to a message sent to its media email inbox.
The nonpartisan Election Commission unanimously granted Stein the right to run in February because the Green Party won more than 1% of the vote in a statewide election in 2022. Sheryl McFarland received just under 1.6% of the vote but finished last in a four-candidate race for Secretary of State.
Strange argued in his complaint that the Wisconsin Green Party could not nominate electors for president because no one in the party is a state official, such as legislators, judges and others. Without electors, the party could not put a presidential candidate on the ballot, Strange claimed.
Stein’s appearance on the ballot could make a difference in the battleground state of Wisconsin, where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by margins of between 5,700 and around 23,000 votes.
Stein was last on the Wisconsin ballot in 2016, when she received just over 31,000 votes – more than Donald Trump’s margin in the state. Some Democrats have accused her of helping Trump win the state and the presidency that year.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court disqualified Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins from running in 2020 after the election commission could not agree on whether he had submitted the correct nomination signatures.
The latest Marquette University Law School poll, conducted July 24-August 1, showed the Wisconsin presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Trump roughly tied among likely voters. Democrats fear third-party candidates could siphon votes away from Harris and shift the race in Trump’s favor.
The Electoral College plans to meet on August 27 to determine whether the four independent presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, meet the requirements to appear on the ballot.
Strange filed a separate complaint with the commission last week to disqualify West from the ballot, claiming his candidacy was not properly notarized. Cornel’s campaign manager countered in a written response that any deficiencies in the notarization should not be enough to disqualify him from the ballot. That complaint is pending.
Because of similar problems with the notary number, election officials in Michigan excluded West from the state’s ballot on Friday.
