The Wisconsin Supreme Court has just ruled that the county clerk’s office can’t declare a voter is “indefinitely confined” simply because they are living in a pandemic.
Election Wiz – Under Wisconsin law, a voter may receive a ballot by mail and bypass Wisconsin’s voter ID law, if the voter, by his own determination, concludes he “confined” based on age, physical illness, or infirmity. This fall, roughly 215,000voters in Wisconsin said they were indefinitely confined, nearly a four-fold increase from the 2016 election.
After a string of defeats in court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling comes as much needed victory for President Trump and his allies.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports- The state Supreme Court ruled Monday it is up to Wisconsinites to determine whether they face challenges that allow them to vote absentee without providing a copy of a photo ID.
Under state law, people can vote absentee without showing an ID if they say they are indefinitely confined because of age, disability, or infirmity.
Two county clerks this spring contended voters could meet that status because of the coronavirus pandemic and a stay-at-home order issued by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
The state Republican Party sued directly with the state Supreme Court and the justices quickly issued an initial order that said the advice from the county clerks was faulty. The clerks rescinded their advice.
In its final decision Monday, the justices concluded it was up to each voter — not clerks or anyone else — to decide when they qualify as indefinitely confined. In addition, they found the pandemic and the stay-at-home order — which has since been struck down — did not render all voters indefinitely confined.
On those points the seven justices were unanimous. But the court’s three liberals dissented on some parts of the majority opinion.
The case began this spring after Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell posted a notice online ahead of the April election telling voters they could get absentee ballots without providing an ID by designating themselves indefinitely confined if they were staying in their home because of the pandemic. Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson issued similar advice.
“The plain language of (state law) requires that each elector make an individual assessment to determine whether he or she qualifies as indefinitely confined or disabled for an indefinite period. A county clerk may not ‘declare’ that any elector is indefinitely confined due to a pandemic,” Chief Justice Patience Roggensack wrote for the majority.
There’s more…
On December 3, The Gateway Pundit reported about thousands of ballots that were counted in Dane County which were labeled as “indefinitely confined” that were in pristine condition. This indicated that they were fraudulent.
Thousands of IC votes were observed by recount watchers in Dane County that were in pristine condition rather than being folded or showing any sign of wear and tear. The same was observed in thousands of absentee votes with the initials of ‘MLW’ on them.
On December 2, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin claiming the following:
The Complaint alleges that over 170,000 absentee ballots were accepted and counted in the two counties when the voter did not fill out an application for an absentee ballot.
The Complaint alleges that over 5,500 absentee ballots were accepted and counted when a person in the Election Clerk’s office filled out some of the information required on the outside of the ballot envelope.
More than 28,000 votes are claimed to have been cast by individuals who did not meet the definition of “indefinite confinement” and thereby avoided the otherwise mandatory voter identification requirement.
Finally, it alleges that more than 17,000 ballots were received and later counted at “Democracy In The Park” events.
The majority decision stated if voters falsely claimed they were indefinitely confined “their ballots would not count.” But the court did not give license to throw out large numbers of ballots without making determinations about the status of each individual voter, as Trump has sought in his separate lawsuit.
In another ruling by the WI Supreme Court today, they rejected President Donald Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the battleground state. The ruling, that came down about an hour before the Electoral College was to meet today, ends Trump’s legal challenges in the state. Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes.
To be continued…
