The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee seeking to include Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on the November ballot.
Just one day before the Wisconsin Elections Commission decides which candidates will be allowed on the ballot this fall, the court moved swiftly, ordering the parties to file briefs in response to the Democrats’ petition late last week, before the Wisconsin Green Party even had a lawyer.
The Democrats had previously filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) against Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, arguing that she should not be included on the state’s presidential election ballot because the Wisconsin Green Party does not have any official officials in the state who could serve as presidential electors.
The WEC rejected the Democrats’ complaint on formal grounds, whereupon the party took the case to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, the WEC voted to allow the Greens to stand on the ballot because they would have received at least 1% of the vote in the 2022 national election.
However, Democrats argued that the party could not nominate electors for president in Wisconsin and that without electors, the party could not be on the ballot. State law requires that electors nominated in October must be state officials, such as members of the legislature, judges and others. Candidates for the legislature can also be electors.
The Statutes states that presidential electors “shall be candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives nominated by each political party in the primary election, the state officers of each political party, and the senators of each political party who have held their seats in the state.”
The Greens were represented by Brookfield attorney Michael Dean, who regularly works with Wisconsin Republicans. The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty also filed an amicus curiae brief in the case, arguing for the Greens to be included on the ballot.
“With its petition, the Democratic Party seeks to use this Court to numb the voice of its one-time ally and silence the voice of Wisconsin voters,” Dean wrote in a motion to dismiss the case. “Given that the Democratic Party has declared war on the Green Party, the Green Party has no objection to the Republican Party joining the fight to protect the First Amendment rights of all Wisconsin voters.”
Dr. Michael White, chairman of the Wisconsin Green Party, had previously told the Wisconsin Examiner that the Democrats’ move was an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
With less than two months to go before the election, the two major political parties are arguing over the existence of third-party candidates on the ballot. On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. Although Kennedy originally entered the race as a Democrat, polls showed that his continued participation in the race largely drained support from Trump.
Democrats also blame Stein in part for Trump’s 2016 Wisconsin victory. The multiple-term candidate received more votes in Wisconsin than Trump’s margin. Earlier this month, White said that assumption was incorrect and it was unlikely that all of those votes would have gone to Hillary Clinton if Stein had not been on the ballot.
In 2020, the Green Party’s presidential candidates were not on the ballot in Wisconsin because of administrative errors in their application materials.
In a statement, Stein celebrated the end of the legal dispute.
“This is a major victory against the Democratic Party’s war on democracy and freedom of choice,” Stein said. “Democrats constantly preach about ‘saving democracy’ when in reality they are doing everything they can to destroy democracy by trying to ban the Green Party and others from the ballot. Today, justice prevailed, we beat back the DNC’s attack, and Wisconsin voters will still have a choice in this election to stand against genocide, stand for workers, and stand for climate action.”
Get the morning’s headlines straight to your inbox
