(Headline USA) Wisconsin Republicans have filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to resolve a discrepancy between state and federal law about what date the state’s presidential electors must meet to cast Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes for President-elect Donald Trump.
State law calls for the electors to meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, which this year is Dec. 16. But federal law requires the meeting to be the first Tuesday following the second Wednesday, which is Dec. 17 this year.
The Wisconsin Republican Party asked in the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court seeking an order that the electors follow federal law and cast their votes on Dec. 17.
The lawsuit argues that the state law requirement is unconstitutional, unenforceable and therefore should be declared void.
“If the presidential electors do not follow federal law for when they must cast their votes, then those votes could be contested,” the lawsuit contends.
The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature, recognizing the conflict, attempted to bring the state into compliance with federal law with a bill last session. The Senate passed it 31-1, but it never got a vote in the Assembly.
The lawsuit was filed against Gov. Tony Evers, Attorney General Josh Kail and Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. Spokespeople for all of them declined to comment.
The new day for electors to meet was included in a federal law passed with bipartisan support in 2022 that overhauled the rules for certifying the results of a presidential election in response to the Jan. 6 uprising and Trump’s failed challenge to the highly disputed 2020 election outcome.
Fifteen states had updated their laws to come into compliance with the new federal law by mid-October, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Electoral Count Act updated an 1800s-era law that governs, along with the U.S. Constitution, how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential election winners. The law clarifies that the vice president’s role presiding over the count is only ceremonial and that he or she cannot change the results.
It also sets out that each state can only send one certified set of electors after Trump’s allies had unsuccessfully tried to put together alternate slateselectors in Wisconsin and other swing states where President Joe Biden was certified the winner even while challenges were ongoing.
Although there was precedent for doing so—dating back to at least the 1960 election, when Hawaii’s alternate electors helped swing the outcome for Democrat John F. Kennedy in a razor-thin election—corrupt Democrat prosecutors have tried to prosecute Trump allies in several states. Reports indicate that Democrats had also planned to send alternate electors in the event of a disputed election in which Trump won.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
