The Wisconsin Supreme Court cleared the way for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein to appear on state ballots Monday after it declined to hear a challenge filed by Democrats seeking to remove her.
The Democratic National Committee, apparently fearful that Stein’s third-party candidacy would draw votes away from Vice President Kamala Harris, had asked the liberal-majority court last week to order the Wisconsin Elections Commission to bar Stein from appearing on November ballots because of the Green Party’s lack of statewide office holders or legislative candidates authorized to nominate presidential electors.
“We determine that the petitioner is not entitled to the relief he seeks,” the court said in its unsigned order that did not explain the reasoning behind the decision, according to the Associated Press.
Stein, 74, called the ruling a “big win against the anti-Democratic Party’s war on democracy and voter choice!”
Wisconsin Green Party Co-Chair Michael White characterized the DNC effort as a “mark of fear by the Democratic Party.”
“It was an inevitable conclusion because the complaint had no merit to begin with and we knew that,” he said, according to the AP.
DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson called the ruling “disappointing,” suggesting that it was “crystal clear” that Stein’s attempt to challenge Harris and former President Donald Trump for the White House was in “violation of the law.”
Wisconsin, a pivotal battleground state, was decided by less than a percentage point (or about 21,000 votes) in the 2020 election, when the state went for President Biden over Trump.
In 2016, the last time Stein appeared on Wisconsin ballots, she received about 31,000 votes.
That same year, Trump, 78, topped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the state by around 24,000 votes (less than a percentage point).
In her post-election memoir, Clinton blamed Stein voters for her loss in Wisconsin and other swing states.
“So in each state, there were more than enough Stein voters to swing the result, just like Ralph Nader did in Florida and New Hampshire in 2000,” Clinton wrote in her 2017 book, “What Happened.”
The Green Party platform echoes many of the left-leaning positions on the Democratic Party policy agenda, including restoring abortion rights nationwide, canceling student loan debt and supporting the Equality Act, which would add sex, sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Prior to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stunning endorsement of Trump and exit from the race last week, polls have been mixed as to whether third-party contenders hinder Trump more than Harris.
Several recent polls have found that Trump fares worse against Harris when third-party candidates are factored in, but some of the RealClearPolitics aggregates show the opposite to be true. Kennedy, the leading third-party candidate before his exit, had pulled more voters (9%) away from Trump than Harris (7%) nationally, according to a Fox News survey.
Stein’s green light to appear on Wisconsin ballots, where 10 Electoral College votes are up for grabs, comes days after a Michigan judge overruled the state’s Bureau of Elections to allow independent candidate Cornel West to appear on state ballots.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections had disqualified West earlier this month because of “defects in the notarization” of one of his campaign filings. Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford overturned the Bureau of Election’s ruling on Saturday.
Subsequently, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted 3-1 on Monday to certify the far-left presidential hopeful for the Nov. 5 ballot.
However, that decision is expected to be appealed by a voter challenging the signatures on West’s ballot access application and a separate appeal of Redford’s Saturday ruling is already in the works, according to the Detroit Free Press.
