Democrats are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to step in and prevent a Green Party candidate from appearing on Wisconsin’s ballot.
The lawsuit filed Monday is the latest push by Democrats in the fight for voting access in a state known for its razor-thin election results.
The Democratic National Committee filed a so-called Petition for Original Action this week, arguing that the state’s highest court should take up the matter.
The petition alleges that Jill Stein and Butch Ware, the Green Party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates, cannot legally appear on the Wisconsin ballot. The petition says this is because the Green Party does not have statewide officeholders or state legislative candidates, which are required to nominate presidential electors in Wisconsin.
But Jason Call of Stein’s campaign team called these legal arguments baseless.
“This is a completely pointless lawsuit designed to waste our time and resources,” Call said. “We’ve already had legal counsel look at the matter, and basically the Democrats are trying to exploit a missing part of Wisconsin election law that doesn’t define how third parties, like minor parties, should select their electors.”
The arguments made in the petition reflect those made by the DNC in complaints filed with the Election Commission.
The Democrats first filed a version of this complaint on August 14, but the commission rejected it on technicalities. The DNC refiled the complaint, but the commission dismissed it without review.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has scheduled a meeting for August 27 to confirm candidates for the November election. The Wisconsin Supreme Court should intervene beforehand and order the commission to block the Green Party, the petition says.
Call said the complaints have motivated the Green Party to field more candidates in future elections in Wisconsin.
“If the Democrats want to be anti-democratic, not undemocratic, but anti-democratic, then we will certainly put candidates against them,” he said. “And if they want to call us spoilsports, they can do that, but we will certainly defeat their efforts to exclude us from the election.”
Stein last appeared on the Wisconsin ballot in 2016, securing more than 31,000 votes in the state.
In 2016, former President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by about 24,000 votes. Four years later, in 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by fewer than 21,000 votes.
Pete Karas, the Wisconsin Green Party’s election director, rejected claims by some Democrats that the Greens could harm progressive causes by facilitating Trump’s victory. He criticized how both Republican and Democratic candidates have responded to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Our view is that we have two candidates, the two corporate candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, who are both for genocide, and that line cannot be crossed,” Karas said. “And there are many people out there who do not support that and will support the only candidate on the ballot who is against genocide.”
Karas said Wisconsin must allow ranked-choice voting and called the two-party system a failure.
“I don’t think you can ruin a bad system,” he said.
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