(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s election managers want the state supreme court to keep President Biden’s Democratic challenger off the Wisconsin ballot.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission asked the court to reject Dean Phillips’ bid to be added to the April primary ballot. Phillips, who is a Minnesota congressman, is running a longshot bid against the president.
Democrats in Wisconsin only nominated President Biden for the ballot in early January. Phillips has said he should be included and said he reached out to state Democrats in December but was ignored.
WEC’s lawyers said Phillips didn’t take any action after being left off the ballot and waited until this week to ask the supreme court to do something.
“Phillips could have spent the month of January collecting the 8,000 signatures that would have guaranteed him a place on the ballot,” the Commission’s lawyers told the court. “Instead, he opted to sit on his rights. And, for no apparent reason at all, he waited over three weeks to file this petition.”
State law says the deadline to make the April ballot was Jan. 30.
Wisconsin law allows the parties to decide who is placed on the ballot and says parties can make those decisions based on “candidates whose candidacy is generally advocated or recognized in the national news media throughout the United States.”
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday said he thinks Phillips’ lawsuit is “ridiculous.”
“I think the party can figure it out. I can’t believe that this is going to court, it seems ridiculous to me,” Evers told reporters. “To me, it looks like they followed the process. I’m not sure what his position will be in court. It’s just another distraction.”
Phillips said he got 20% of the vote in the New Hampshire Primary, despite having to run as a write-in. Phillips is asking for a decision in Wisconsin by the end of next week.
