Democrats ask Wisconsin Supreme Court to boot Green Party from ballot

Democrats are asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to step in to prevent a Green Party candidate from appearing on Wisconsin ballots. 

Monday’s legal filing is the Democrats’ latest move in a battle over ballot access in a state known for its razor-thin election margins.

The Democratic National Committee filed what’s known as a petition for original action this week, arguing that the state’s high court should take up the issue.

The petition asserts that Jill Stein and Butch Ware, the Green Party’s candidates for president and vice president, cannot legally appear on Wisconsin ballots.

According to the petition, that’s because the Greens don’t have have any statewide office holders or state legislative candidates who are needed to nominate presidential electors in Wisconsin.

But Jason Call of the Stein campaign called those legal arguments meritless.

“This is a completely frivolous lawsuit intended to waste our time and resources,” Call said. “We had legal counsel look at it already, and basically what the Democrats are trying to exploit is a missing part of the Wisconsin election code that does not define how third parties, how minor parties, should select their electors.”

DNC representatives did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The arguments made in the petition echo arguments brought forth by the DNC in complaints filed with the Elections Commission.

Democrats first filed a version of that complaint on Aug. 14, but the commission dismissed it on a technicality after determining the complaint failed to name an election official as a respondent. The DNC has since filed what was essentially the same complaint, but with Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe also named as a respondent. However, the commission disposed of that second complaint without consideration.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has a meeting scheduled for Aug. 27 to certify candidates for November’s election. Wisconsin’s high court should intervene before then, and order the WEC to block the Green Party, the petition argues.

“Although this Court rarely exercises its original jurisdiction, the Court does so
when the ‘questions presented are of such importance as under the circumstances to call for [a] speedy and authoritative determination,’” the petition says.

In an interview Tuesday, Call said, going forward, the complaints have motivated the Green Party to put forth candidates in more races in Wisconsin.

“If this is how the Democrats want to play, we will. We will play hardball right back,” he said. “If the Democrats want to behave in an anti, not undemocratic, but anti-democratic, way, then we will certainly throw candidates at them. And if they want to call us spoilers, they can, but certainly we will spoil their efforts at trying to keep us off the ballot.”

Call told WPR the Green Party’s plan is to put forth those Wisconsin candidates in time for the Nov. 5 election.

But, Pete Karas, the elections chairperson for the Wisconsin Green Party, said Call misspoke about the timing of that plan.

The deadline for Wisconsin partisan candidates to file ahead of this fall’s election was June 3, and a primary for Congressional and state legislative races took place Aug. 13. Write-ins can file before noon on the Friday before Election Day.

Karas said Wisconsin’s Green Party plans to field candidates in 2026 for governor, Wisconsin attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state and every competitive state legislative race.

“We’re very upset about the way the Democrats have been undemocratic,” he said. “We’re going to target every purple district in the state. The Democrats may perceive this as spoiling their chances to win these upcoming elections, and they can perceive it however they wish.”

Stein last appeared on Wisconsin ballots in 2016, when she secured more than 31,000 votes in the state.

In 2016, former President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by a margin of about 24,000 votes. Four years later, in 2020, President Joe Biden edged out Trump in Wisconsin by less than 21,000 votes.

Karas rejected the assertion from some Democrats that the Green Party could hurt progressive causes by enabling Trump’s victory. He criticized how both the Republican and Democratic candidates have responded to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“Our feeling is we have two candidates, the two corporate candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, who are both pro-genocide, and that is a line that cannot be crossed,” Karas said. “And there are plenty of people out there who will not support that, and will support the only anti-genocide candidate on the ballot.”

Karas said Wisconsin needs to allow ranked choice voting and called the two-party system a failure.

“I don’t think you can spoil a bad system,” he said.