The Wisconsin Voters Affiliation is a non-profit corporation whose members seek, in part, to ensure the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections. On November 23, they petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court, ordinarily an appellate court, to enjoin Defendants, Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), from certifying the results of the general election and to require the governor to certify electors appointed by the state legislature. Petitioners claimed that FaceBook Founder Mark Zuckerberg gifted over $6 million from his privately funded Center for Technology and Civic Life to aid five Democratic counties in circumventing absentee ballot laws. The cities impacted are Madison, Green Bay, Racine, Kenosha, and Milwaukee.
Petitioners also claimed that there were enough ballots in question to overcome Joe Biden’s slim 20,000 vote lead across the following categories:
- Ballots requested in the name of a registered Republican by someone other than that named voter,
- Republican ballots that were returned but not counted,
- Ballots from people who voted where they did not live,
- Ballots from voters wrongfully declaring themselves “Indefinitely Confined” (due to Covid-19) to register without providing photo ID,
- Ballots from out of state voters, and
- Double votes
After ten days and numerous amicus briefs, Justice Hagerdorn, writing for the majority, determined that the petition does not meet the jurisdictional requirements for original action, despite acknowledging that there were “time-sensitive questions of statewide significance.” He then sarcastically called attention to the remedy sought.
Justice Roggensack dissented because the public needs to believe that the elections were fair. “This is the third time that a case filed in this court raised allegations about purely legal questions that concern the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) conduct during the November 3, 2020, presidential election. This is the third time that a majority of this court has turned its back on pleas from the public to address a matter of statewide concern that requires a declaration of what the statutes require for absentee voting.” The majority’s misplaced “concern” about the requested remedy was premature because it is not a factor in determining which petitions to accept.