Wisconsin's high court will not order mail ballots reprinted, averting potential chaos

Wisconsin's highest court rejected a third-party candidate's bid to join November's presidential ballot, a move that would have invalidated tens of thousands of ballots already mailed to voters and potentially thrown the election process into chaos.


Reuters | Updated: 15-09-2020 04:49 IST | Created: 15-09-2020 04:49 IST
Wisconsin's high court will not order mail ballots reprinted, averting potential chaos
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  • United States

Wisconsin's highest court rejected a third-party candidate's bid to join November's presidential ballot, a move that would have invalidated tens of thousands of ballots already mailed to voters and potentially thrown the election process into chaos. The court ruled that the Green Party's presidential slate could not be added to the ballot because the party's candidates waited too long to challenge the elections commission's decision to exclude them due to discrepancies in their paperwork.

Election officials had warned that forcing them to order more than 1 million ballots reprinted with Green Party's presidential candidate, Howie Hawkins' name would have caused mass confusion while calling into question whether new ballots could even be finished in time for the election. The rate of mail-in voting is expected to balloon across the country this year, as voters avoid polling sites in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly claimed that the use of mail ballots will lead to fraud, though experts say there is no evidence to back his assertion.

Trump will face Democrat Joe Biden, the former vice president, in the Nov. 3 presidential election. Wisconsin's elections commission in August had rejected signature petitions filed by the Green Party's Hawkins, and his running mate, Angela Walker, because they showed two different addresses for Walker.

Hawkins filed a petition with the Supreme Court, and the court on Thursday instructed local governments to stop sending out ballots until it reached a decision. But on Monday, a divided 4-3 court vacated that order, finding that Hawkins and Walker waited too long before challenging the commission's decision not to include them.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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