(The Center Square) – An outspoken Democratic candidate for governor in Wisconsin has until Sunday to have an affidavit submitted to correct signatures on his nomination papers or he will be removed from the ballot.
Kirk Bangstad, who owns Minocqua Brewing Company, shared on the company’s social media pages that he is being asked to correct the papers. He currently has 1,504 valid signatures with 2,000 required.
Bangstad previously ran for the Wisconsin Assembly in 2020. He gained attention earlier this year for comments related to offering free beer after an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.
Bangstad wrote that the nomination papers used Aug. 11, the date of the Democratic primary, as the election date listed on the forms but was required to list the date of the general election.
“The people signing this nomination form will see Bangstad’s name on August 11 as running for governor before they’ll see his name in the general election, so we can’t understand why the election officials would decide that this date would somehow mislead the people signing the nomination forms, which is why they invalidated the signatures,” Bangstad wrote. “Would an experienced campaign staff have known to list the general election as opposed to the primary election? Probably, but we don’t have an experienced campaign staff. We had normal people filling in these forms using normal people logic. We will appeal and there’s a good argument for why we should win.”
Bangstad shared an email from staff at the Wisconsin Elections Commission explaining the issue and that 40 of the 268 pages of nominating papers had all the signatures struck because of issues with the circulator “providing incorrect informations/dates or omitting required information such as their municipality of residence.”
The affidavits need to be corrected and notarized by 5 p.m. on Sunday.
