Donald Trump is now calling on the Republican speaker of the Assembly in the Wisconsin Legislature to snatch back the state’s 2020 electoral votes to declare him the winner of the presidential race he lost in the wake of a court ruling on ballot drop boxes.
He pushed the astonishing plan a day after he baselessly declared himself the winner in the state when the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday restricted the number of absentee ballot boxes in future elections. He again insisted in his message on his Truth Social platform Saturday that he is the “actual winner (by a lot!)” in the battleground state.
Trump claimed “Brave American Patriots already have a Resolution on the [Wisconsin Assembly] Floor” to throw out Joe Biden’s victory.
There is no evidence that the vote in Wisconsin, or anywhere else in the nation, was fraudulent. Dozens of court cases and several recounts state by state verified Biden’s victory.
Trump and his Republican allies have claimed that drop boxes facilitated cheating in the 2020 election, but have offered no evidence. Even if votes from all the absentee drop boxes were eliminated in the last election — which has nothing to do with the court ruling — there’s no indication Trump would have been the winner.
The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Friday that absentee ballot drop boxes may in the future only be placed in election offices — and that no one other than the voter can return a ballot in person. “Ballot drop boxes appear nowhere in the detailed statutory system for absentee voting,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos could not immediately be reached for comment about Trump’s demand. Vos hailed the court’s decision in a statement Friday — and called the drop boxes “illegal” — but said nothing about throwing out election results.
Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Friday condemned the court’s decision, lashing it as part of the Republican effort to make it more difficult to vote.
Critics say the GOP’s goal is to significantly decrease the number of votes in the nation, a move that is generally considered beneficial to Republicans. One way to do that is to make voting as inconvenient as possible. Mail-in ballots and drop boxes have been especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic so voters don’t have to risk their health — and lives — at crowded polling stations to vote.
Trump continues to push for single-day, in-person voting in elections — prohibiting convenient mail-in ballots and early voting that 69% of American voters used in 2020. (Trump himself votes by mail.) That would be challenging, especially for the disabled and the elderly, as well as for those working long hours or two jobs, along with juggling child care.