Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week to order that he be listed on the state’s presidential primary ballot following his exclusion by election officials.
But those officials are now urging the court to decline the case, holding that the congressman’s “eleventh hour” request comes too late and that he failed to follow the statutory process for challenging their decision.
“While his campaign knew on January 2 that the Committee had not included him as a candidate, he neither commenced a signature and petition effort nor sought judicial recourse until three days before the Commission should provide the certified list of all qualified candidates to the county clerks—deadlines that enable municipal clerks to meet mandatory deadlines for distributing ballots to military and overseas voters,” wrote attorneys for the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and the state’s Presidential Preference Selection Committee in a Jan. 31 filing….