Wisconsin Supreme Court agrees to expedited hearing on Green Party ballot ban

(The Center Square) - Following the Wisconsin Election Commission's dismissal of a complaint from a Democratic National Committee staffer, who seeks to remove Green Party candidate Jill Stein from the ballot, the plaintiff has doubled down and filed an expedited appeal with the state’s Supreme Court.

Court documents reveal it accepted the case Thursday and is requesting that the plaintiff provide additional information, actions that have caused two Supreme Court justices to dissent.

“The majority issues an unprecedented order directing the petitioner – within two hours – to give the court contact information for the respondents, which is currently absent from the record because no one has entered an appearance on behalf of any of those parties. How is the petitioner – an employee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – supposed to know the name or physical address of an ‘attorney or other representative of each respondent who is authorized to accept service of orders issued by this court’?” Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote in dissent of the Supreme Court's majority ruling. “To my knowledge, at no time in history has the court issued orders before parties had made their appearances. Petitioner filed this original action on Monday, served the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Tuesday, and served the Wisconsin Green Party just yesterday. The majority steps beyond its neutral role to lawyer the case on behalf of the DNC, seemingly facilitating an expedited review of this original action. Other parties presenting original action petitions have not received such preferential treatment by this court.”

Chief Justice Annette Kinsgland Ziegler joined the dissent.

Deputy Operations Director of Wisconsin’s Democratic National Committee David Strange submitted the challenge to Stein’s candidacy last week, The Center Square previously reported.

The complaint argued that because the Green Party did not nominate candidates for the Wisconsin Senate or Assembly by the Aug. 13 primaries, the party has no qualified presidential electors.

WEC Attorney Angela O'Brien Sharpe dismissed Strange's complaint on Friday, saying the commissioners named as respondents in the complaint can't decide on a matter brought against them without a conflict of interest. Strange immediately appealed to the state’s highest court.

Stein won more than 31,000 Wisconsin votes in 2016 – more than Donald Trump's winning margin in the state. The state's Supreme Court banned Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins from the ballot in 2020 after the WEC deadlocked on whether he had submitted enough proper signatures.

Recent swing state polls show many Democratic voters say they would be more likely to vote for a nominee who will pledge to withhold weapons from Israel. They also reported being more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if Biden were to secure a ceasefire.

Stein, who has called the Israel-Hamas war a “genocide,” has criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s policies toward Israel, a weak spot in Harris’ campaign.

“The DNC appears to believe that if they knock Jill Stein off the ballot, her voters will have no choice but to vote for the Democratic ticket,” Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party Dr. Michael White said. “But Green Party members have expressed the intent to vote against the Democrats in down-ballot races. This won’t win voters to the Democratic Party. It will further fragment the progressive vote. The solution to the Democrats’ dilemma is not voter suppression, like the Republicans. The solution is Ranked-choice voting. The Democrats want to make certain Green votes won’t be counted. The Green Party wants to ensure every vote will be counted.”