Green Bay, Crivitz lawmakers join suit to challenge election results

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WBAY) - Two lawmakers from Northeast Wisconsin are among those suing to challenge election results in several states.

Rep. David Steffen (R-Green Bay) and Rep. Jeff L. Mursau (R-Crivitz) and the Wisconsin Voters Alliance have joined a suit to challenge results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.

The news, first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and confirmed by Action 2 News through federal documents, names Vice President Mike Pence, the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the Electoral College, governors and other legislative officials. It was filed in United States District Court.

Democrat Joe Biden won all of these states in the Nov. 3 election. Electors have cast their votes for Biden and sent them to the U.S. Congress. Congress will meet Jan. 6 to count the electoral votes. Vice President Pence will preside over that session and declare a winner of the election.

Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president on Jan. 20.

President Donald Trump has filed a flurry of lawsuits challenging the results of the election, claiming massive fraud. Most of those suits were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Trump paid for a recount of votes in Dane County and Milwaukee County, but the outcome showed little change in the results. Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday asks for the states to conduct a “constitutionally-compliant process for state-by-state post-election certification of Presidential votes and Presidential electors.” It states Vice President Pence and Congress should not be allowed to consider Presidential elector votes from states “unless their respective state legislatures have voted affirmatively in a post-election vote to certify Presidential votes and their Presidential electors for the current and future Presidential elections.”

The lawsuit alleges there is a “cabal of public-private partnerships” that “undermine state statutes and plans designed to protect the integrity of the election.”

The plaintiffs say they object to the use of private funds to pay for things that helped the mail-in or absentee voting process during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as drop boxes and mobile ballot retrieval. The suit says this helped officials in “Democratic strongholds.”

“This impotency is caused by the ministerial functions of Congress and the Vice President regarding the counting of the Presidential Elector’s votes and also by state law prohibiting the legislative body from meeting without a supermajority or governor or leadership agreement during a time they can respond to what happened in the election,” reads the lawsuit.

“This wholesale delegation of legislative authority operates contrary to the Constitution by inviting ‘cabal, intrigue and corruption’ rather than operating to prevent the same. State legislative bodies have been relegated to observing the ministerial functions of a small group of executive officials who have refused various requests by legislators to be called into special session. Consequently, the legislative bodies as a whole of Defendant States have not engaged in any open discussion, review, investigation, or debate regarding the 2020 general election.”

The case has been assigned to Judge James E. Boasberg.

Curiously, the suit lists Wisconsin State Sen. Howard Marklein as Senate Majority Leader. He does not serve in that role. Sen. Devin LeMahieu has been named the next Senate Majority Leader, replacing Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was elected to U.S. Congress.

The defendants have 21 days to respond to the lawsuit.

Copyright 2020 WBAY. All rights reserved.