(The Center Square) – A lawsuit over ballot dropboxes, absentee ballots, and the deadline to cure ballots in Wisconsin could get more crowded.
The Republican National Committee, along with the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and the Republican parties of both Rock and Walworth counties asked to join the suit as defendants Tuesday.
“Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit to invalidate Wisconsin’s absentee ballot witness requirement, the drop box prohibition, the election-day cure deadline and the Legislature’s determination that absentee voting is ‘a privilege exercised wholly outside the traditional safeguards of the polling place.’” the Republican’s request states. “Those laws protect Wisconsin’s elections and allow voters, groups and candidates alike to trust and navigate the democratic process. [We] have interests in the rules and procedures governing Wisconsin’s elections, and they respectfully request that this Court allow them to intervene in this case so they may protect those interests.”
The plaintiffs include Priorities USA and the Wisconsin Alliance For Retired Americans, groups the Republicans call “dark money groups.” Their lawsuit, which was filed last month, challenges a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that said voters cannot return absentee ballots without official witness signatures.
“Wisconsin election integrity is under attack from far-left dark-money groups bent on destroying basic voting safeguards, so the RNC, RPW and RITE are legally intervening to ensure that Wisconsinites can have faith in their election process,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. “As Democrats compete to see who can launch the most self-serving and frivolous attack on election integrity, Republicans remain committed to protecting your vote in the Badger State and nationwide.”
Priorities USA defended their lawsuit as a move against disenfranchisement.
“Previous campaign cycles have put a much-needed spotlight on the blatant attempts to use restricted access to absentee voting as a means of voter suppression,” Aneesa McMillan, Deputy Executive Director of Priorities USA said in a statement. “As a result of this, vulnerable communities, including people of color, face extraordinary barriers to casting their ballots. We hope this legal effort will bring relief to Wisconsin voters while expanding access to the ballot for every eligible voter in the state.”
The Republicans want to join the case, they say, because they have more of an interest than the Wisconsin Elections Commission which is named as the original defendant.
“The Commission necessarily represents ‘the public interest’ rather than [our] particular interests,” the Republicans said in their request to the court. “And the Commission was on the side of the Democratic Party in…the very case that Plaintiffs are trying to overturn with this lawsuit.”
The Republicans are asking the judge for a declaratory judgment.
“[We] respectfully submit that [we] have at least as much at stake in Wisconsin’s elections and at least as much expertise on the relevant issues as Plaintiffs or the Commission,” the Republicans said. “Allowing [us] to intervene here would thus serve ‘the interest of a full exposition of the issues.’”
