Trump asks U.S. Supreme Court to take Wisconsin case

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to take its failed lawsuit challenging election results in the swing state of Wisconsin.

Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden by about 21,000 votes. The president’s campaign filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state’s two most heavily Democratic counties.

Trump wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; there were absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; there were absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and there were absentee ballots on which clerks had filled in missing information on ballot envelopes.

The state Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit, ruling 4-3 that Trump’s challenge to voters who were indefinitely confined was without merit and that the other claims had come too late.

Trump’s campaign is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare that Wisconsin’s election failed and allow the Republican-controlled Legislature to appoint the state’s electors.

Trump and his allies have suffered dozens of defeats in Wisconsin and throughout the country in lawsuits that rely on unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud and election abuse. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to reverse a trio of Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings dealing with mail-in ballots and allow the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pick its own slate of electors.