GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Three voters in northeastern Wisconsin have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to exclude election ballots in Milwaukee, Dane and Menominee counties that helped deliver the state to President-elect Joe Biden.
The plaintiffs allege without evidence that absentee voting is rife with widespread fraud and that votes in those counties should not be included in the state’s final election certification, which would then give Wisconsin to President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, alleges voters in the three counties may have bypassed state law requiring voters to provide a photo ID by declaring themselves “indefinitely confined” due to the coronavirus pandemic. The suit also takes issue with clerks’ abilities to take corrective actions to remedy errors related to witness’s addresses on absentee ballots, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“Election workers, overwhelmed by the sudden flood of mailed ballots, have less ability to carefully review them to screen out fraudulent ones, creating a substantial risk that fraudulent votes will be counted and vote-dilution disenfranchisement will occur,” the lawsuit says.
There remained no evidence of any wrongdoing, fraud or irregularity in Wisconsin’s presidential election, as counties worked to wrap up the certification of their votes and their estimates of how much it would cost to recount them, the state’s top elections official said this week.
Thursday’s lawsuit is one of several being brought on behalf of Trump in an effort to change the outcome of the presidential election.
Wisconsin is one of several states Trump is focused on changing, through this lawsuit and also by a potential recount. Biden won in Wisconsin by a margin of about 20,500 votes.
As of Friday, 60 of the state’s 72 counties had certified the results of the election. There has been little change from unofficial results posted on election night, with Biden gaining 48 votes and Trump picking up 44, giving Biden a net increase of just four votes. The deadline to certify was Tuesday and after the last county submits its report Trump has until 5 p.m. the following day to request a recount.