A state Supreme Court Justice “expressed concern the U.S. Supreme Court might force Wisconsin to redo its election to include Hawkins and Walker.”
Did Democrats – including two big Joe Biden campaign donors – rig the Wisconsin election against President Donald Trump? You be the judge.
Ignore everything the mainstream media is telling you about why President Donald Trump supposedly “lost” Wisconsin in unofficial vote totals because of sky-high turnout, decreasing Republican strength in suburban WOW counties, and growing vote totals in Dane County. Sure, all those things played a role. But there’s another reason why Trump supposedly “lost” Wisconsin (and with it perhaps the presidential election). We say supposedly because he says he’s challenging it in a recount.
We’re talking about the Wisconsin Election Commission’s outrageous and arguably unconstitutional decision, on a 3-3 party line vote, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans against, to block the Green Party’s candidates Howie Hawkins/Angela Walker from the state’s ballot. In a separate decision that had some GOP votes, the Commission also tossed rapper Kanye West from the ballot. We’re especially incensed, though, that the Democrats removed the Green Party as a voter choice with the flimsiest of reasons. (The Greens were tossed off the Pennsylvania ballot by Democrats too).
Some people, including the Green Party, tried to raise the alarm before Nov. 3; frankly so did we. We pointed out that the Democrats, so-called champions of diversity, were trying to keep two black candidates (Angela Walker and West) off the Wisconsin ballot.
In a stinging dissent during a court review, conservative state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley “expressed concern the U.S. Supreme Court might force Wisconsin to redo its election to include Hawkins and Walker,” according to Madison.com. Is she right? It’s something affected folks should consider. Another conservative justice called it a “kangaroo commission.” This is the commission’s chair, Ann Jacobs, with guess who:
Why does this matter so much? Simple math.
In 2016, the Green Party’s Jill Stein received 31,072 votes in Wisconsin. It arguably cost Hillary Clinton the State of Wisconsin because President Donald Trump won the state with fewer votes than that in 2016 (22,748 votes).
Democrats learned this lesson.
They apparently learned it well.
The margin for Biden right now in unofficial Wisconsin returns?
20,535. Do the math. It’s fairly obvious that Green Party voters would be more likely to pick Biden if left with that choice or Trump. It’s definitely possible that keeping the Greens off the ballot gave Biden the extra votes he needed to defeat the president this time around.
The three state Election Commissioners, all Democrats, who did this included a Milwaukee-area trial lawyer, Mark Thomsen, who donated $2,000 in June to…wait for it – Joe Biden. He’s made a career out of suing police departments in use-of-force cases.
“Climate change west coast smoke darkens Milwaukee sunset. Vote. Vote Biden/Harris to save the planet for your children. Please,” he wrote recently on Facebook. He posted another photo with Biden/Harris masks.
The second commissioner, Jacobs, also a Milwaukee-area trial lawyer who is a former public defender, gave…wait for it – $1,000 to Joe Biden in September, less than a month after she voted to boot the Greens from the Wisconsin ballot (in April she told the left-wing site Slate.com that holding an in-person primary election during COVID-19 was “an abomination and a stain on our democracy.”)
Both are blatant Biden supporters on social media. Jacobs even has a photo with Biden as her cover picture on Facebook. We get this commission has long been packed with partisans on both sides; they’re political appointments. The legislature should change that.
In June 2020, according to FEC records, Thomsen donated $1,000 to Biden for President and $1,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in June 2020. He also gave $2,800 to Kamala Harris and $1,000 to the Democratic Party in 2020, among other donations to liberals, federal records show. The same records also record the Jacobs’ donation as well as two others she made to Biden for $250 each in 2020.
The Democrats who did this also include Julie M. Glancey, a former County Clerk. They were aided and abetted by liberal state Supreme Court justices – including one who received donations from Thomsen and Jacobs – and who literally refused to consider the merits of what the commission had done.
Interestingly, the major third party that did make it on the Wisconsin ballot was the Libertarian who would presumably draw more from Trump. The Libertarian’s vote totals exceeded the margin of supposed victory.
How They Did It
In a party line vote on a complete technicality, Democrats argued the Green Party VP – Angela Walker – used two addresses on her nomination papers. She said she had simply moved – within the same state! To kick the Greens off the ballot on this hyper triviality, the Democrats on the state Election Commission stated that it wasn’t proven that Walker had actually moved. Republicans said it was obvious she moved.
It went to the Supreme Court, which, in a 4-3 decision, simply said it was too late in the election process to do anything. The Court did not rule on the merits of the Commission’s decision. The justices in that majority? The liberals (including one elected last spring on the back of a massive liberal outside spending advertising binge) and…so-called conservative justice, Brian Hagedorn. The state Supreme Court passed on actually ruling on the MERITS and said putting the Green Party on the ballot at that point would confuse voters. Yeah, right. What a dereliction of duty. If that’s the principle, then a commission could bar someone from the ballot for literally any reason as long as there isn’t enough “time” to set it right. It’s appalling.
Thanks, Justice Roberts – errr, we mean – Justice Hagedorn, you might have cost Trump the presidential election.
The media fixated its outrage on Robert Spindell, a Republican member of the commission, suggesting attorneys for the Green Party to challenge the decision. In an email obtained by Wisconsin Examiner, Spindell wrote the Greens, “I am very sorry, but not surprised, the three Democrat Commissioners fought hard to keep the Green Party off the Ballot/ The Democrat Party obviously believes this action would push your members to vote for Biden — if they could not vote for their own Green Party Candidates.”
Bingo.
The conservative justices raised the alarm. They believed the commission’s decision was outrageous as a matter of law. They believed it was an affront to Democracy. We suggest you read their dissents here.
Shockingly, they said that Jacobs didn’t even allow Angela Walker the chance to present evidence to support her claim that she had merely moved.
“The three members of this kangaroo commission who voted to deny ballot access to the Green Party, did so because they concluded Walker did not present evidence to support her claim — despite the fact that it was the Commission’s chairperson (Democratic appointee Ann Jacobs) herself who denied Walker the opportunity to do so,” conservative Justice Annette Ziegler wrote.
She noted, “At the time the Green Party filed this action, the record reflects that only one ballot had been sent out to a voter…” So much for voter “confusion.”
“Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, Green Party candidates for President and Vice President, followed all the requirements of Wisconsin law necessary for ballot access, yet the Commission denied them and the people of Wisconsin the right to have Hawkins’ and Walker’s names on the ballot for the November 3, 2020 general election,” wrote conservative justice Patience Roggensack.
She added: “Ann Jacobs, who served as chair of the Commission, prevented the presentation of evidence about the dates of Walker’s move.”
We get that there are unknowns. We are assuming people who would vote for a Green Party candidate lean liberal and, thus, the presence of the party on the ballot would have siphoned votes from Biden, not Trump (versus people sitting it out or writing someone else in or voting for the Libertarian.) We’re assuming this slate of Green Party candidates would be as popular as Stein (the Green Party VP in 2020 was a woman of color from Milwaukee…)
With the sky-high turnout the media keep talking about, though, it’s possible the Green Party would have done even better than they did in 2016. And, frankly, when you look at their platform it’s pretty obvious they would do better with possible Biden voters than with Trump’s, especially in Dane County, where Biden really drove up the margin.
Voters, though, didn’t get that option.
Naming Names
Who are the three liberal commissioners who did this?
Mark Thomsen
Mark Thomsen is a major Biden donor. He’s a personal injury attorney from the Milwaukee area who has specialized in getting settlements from police departments after police shootings and other use of force cases (he represented Bucks player Sterling Brown, for example, but also other families in police-related deaths, including those where the DA did not press charges.) He’s also filed suit on behalf of a top Black Lives Matter activist.
He was appointed to the Commission by then Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca. At the time, according to the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Thomsen and his wife “contributed about $100,700 between January 2005 and December 2015 to Democrats.” His contributions have continued to Democrats unabated in 2020, including Tony Evers and liberal Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsy, among many others.
Ann Jacobs
Ann Jacobs is also a major state Democratic campaign donor to candidates like Gov. Tony Evers, Karofsky, and others. You can see that record here. She was a Democratic Party pick to the Election Commission who was appointed by the Senate Minority Leader.
“Ms. Jacobs left the public defenders office and began her career as a trial attorney in private practice, advocating for the rights of the injured. Since then she has represented hundreds of clients in a wide variety of cases, winning outstanding results for them, including at trial,” her website bio says.
Julie Glancey
Julie Glancey is the third Democrat on the commission. We didn’t find any federal or state campaign donations for Glancey. She was appointed to the Commission by Republican Gov. Scott Walker but is a Democratic Party choice. Basically, Walker had to choose one candidate from a Democratic Party list and picked Glancey off it. She is the former Sheboygan County clerk.
A judge previously found the trio in contempt for failing to strike voter registrations of people who moved.
We didn’t find any federal donations by the three conservative commission members in 2019-2020. They are all GOP donors to state candidates.
The Green Party Accused the Wisconsin Democrats of Committing a ‘Crime Against Democracy’
The Green Party put the blame at the feet of the Democratic Party.
The Green Party says Democrats also challenged its ballot access in Pennsylvania, another key battleground state, too, writing, “Despite turning in far over the requirement (4,000 in WI and 8,300 in PA), our signatures in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have been challenged by the Democrats.” According to Ballot Access.org, “Shortly before the deadline for Pennsylvania petition challenges, some Pennsylvania Democratic leaders filed a challenge to the statewide Green Party petition.”
Sure enough, a Democratic majority on a Pennsylvania election commission also tossed the Green Party off that ballot, overruling a Republican judge. “Democrats have long gone to court to keep Green Party candidates off the ballot, worried that they will siphon otherwise liberal voters in close contests against Republicans in the politically polarized state,” wrote the Associated Press.
The Green Party is accusing Wisconsin Democrats of “committing a crime against democracy” and behaving like an “anti-Democratic party” because the Green Party wasn’t allowed on the Wisconsin ballot for 2020.
The controversy involves the address of Angela Walker, who said, “Throughout this process I lived in Florence, SC. My address in Florence changed, and the Commission has my current address.”
“The Hawkins/Walker campaign contacted the Commission for advice on how to proceed regarding Walker’s address and followed the Commission’s advice, submitting a statement of candidacy with the signatures with her current address,” the Green Party wrote in a press release announcing the suit.
The Green Party accused Democratic Election Commission members in Wisconsin of “suppressing voter choice.”
And what of West?
Kanye’s Race to Get on the Ballot
For his part, West accused the Wisconsin Democratic Party of mounting an “organized effort of harassment and intimidation” and of hiring a private investigator against him.
Democrats on the state’s Election Commission (and a couple Republicans) argued that West’s nomination papers were turned in a few seconds late. West also filed suit to get on the ballot but didn’t succeed.
In his lawsuit to get on the Wisconsin ballot, West argued that the Election Commission “impeded the election nomination process by not unlocking building doors after 4:30 p.m. knowing that a candidate needed immediate access when arriving immediately before the statutory deadline of ‘not later than 5 p.m.’”
The Commission treated the papers as untimely, saying they were turned in 14 seconds late and refused to allow West and his running mate to appear on the Wisconsin ballot.
The lawsuit alleges the attorney working for West is unaware of a timing device or official timepiece used by the Commission. No time stamp or other document was provided to prove the time was actually 5:00:14.
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