Left Unexplained: How 2,177 Signatures on Green Party Nomination Disappeared
Madison, Wisconsin — Voter obstruction, dark money, corruption in public office; Democrats are adopting the ways of the Republican Party.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered another political decision yesterday that attacks a foundational right of citizens to organize and place a candidate of their choosing on the ballot for voters' consideration.
In this case — Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (No. 2020AP1488-OA) — the beneficiaries are the Democratic Party and their cheerleaders, Democratic-aligned election officials.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued an instantly infamous 4-3 decision that denied the Green Party petition challenging the Wisconsin Elections Commission staff decision that was imbued with the force of law, in error, by a Commission administrator.
The Green Party and its Wisconsin citizen supporters wanted the Green Party's presidential and vice-presidential candidates to appear on the General Election ballot.
In Dane County, Democratic Party-aligned municipal and county election officials issued several communications on social media specifically implying a preference in the Howie Hawkins - Green Party petition (litigation) before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
For example, some 25 minutes before the Supreme Court released its decision, the Madison City Clerk signaled its office's desire to mail out the specific ballots for which the Democratic Party fought — without the Green Party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees.
Writes the Madison City Clerk in its official Twitter feed:
A big thank you to the poll workers who have labeled absentee envelopes for 79,958 @CityofMadisonvoters. Once we are given the go-ahead to put ballots in the mail, track the status your absentee at https://myvote.wi.gov. #MadisonVotes2020This and other local officials' communications make clear the Democratic Party-aligned election officials' preference on ballots, though Hawkins was being adjudicated after a Green Party petition to the Court. [See The Rachel Maddow Show, for example, for reporting on election clerks' stated preference on which ballot they mail out: With Green Party or without Green Party. Maddow's piece calls the Green Party and Wisconsin citizen efforts to place a candidate on the ballot a "scam," a position that is the consensus among Democratic Party allies (see Court foils Republican Green Party scam to sap Democratic votes).]
Election officials had no business expressing a ballot preference. This calls into question their neutrality in administering elections without bias when these same officials' political survival is contingent on the Party, the Democratic Party, that instigated dubious administrative action against the Democrats' political opponent.
Local officials should not express or even appear to imply desired outcomes of litigation that involve any private political party whose material benefit is dependent on the Court opinion and order.
Put another way, local election officials should have zipped it and let the litigation proceed without public, social-media comment.
But fealty to the Democratic Party outweighs the needs for unbiased administrations of elections, so social media communications rife with political positions were emitted, and traditional watchdogs were silent.
Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker v. Wisconsin Elections Commission
The Court issued blistering dissents to the majority opinion that let stand the decision of Wisconsin Elections Commission staff that sustained a Democratic Party complaint against the Hawkins-Green Party nomination paperwork.
One dissent written by Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack lays out why the Commission is in error and the concern that the liberty interests of Wisconsin citizens and voters should be taken into consideration in administrative and Court deliberation.
In normal functioning of the Commission, a complaint against a nomination is evaluated, an advisory memo is prepared by staff, and the commissioners vote.
Well, the commissioners voted on the complaint and it did not pass. No matter, the complaint was accepted with the force of law.
Writes Justice Roggensack in part:
¶19 It is important for the public to know that there are election laws that bear on [Allen] Arntsen's challenge, which the Commission refused to follow. First, the Commission was required to presume that the addresses listed on the nomination papers were the correct addresses for the dates listed because Wis. Admin. Code § EL 2.05(4) requires that "[a]ny information which appears on a nomination paper is entitled to a presumption of validity."Section EL 2.07(1) confirms that the Commission "shall apply the standards in § EL 2.05 to determine the sufficiency of nomination papers."Second, § EL 2.07(3)(a) requires that "[t]he burden is on the challenger to establish any insufficiency."
¶20 Here, Arntsen's challenge was based on "information and belief."He had no personal knowledge of where Walker lived on what date; therefore his allegation is insufficient to overturn the presumption that the addresses listed on the nomination papers are correct. Since Crane v. Wiley, 14 Wis. 658 (1861), we have held that allegations based upon information and belief in a complaint make a verification insufficient for material facts. However, the Commission's votes showed it did not honor the presumption of the nomination papers' facts as Wis. Admin. Code §EL 2.05(4) requires; it did not require Arntsen to prove that the addresses on the nomination papers were incorrect as §EL 2.07(3)(a) requires; and it treated Arntsen's allegations made on information and belief as if they proved that Walker's address was incorrect on more than 1,800 nomination papers.
¶21Mérida appeared on behalf of the Green Party candidates at the August 20, 2020 Commission meeting to present evidence about the dates that Walker lived at each address, as legal counsel for the Commission told her she could do.2However, Ann Jacobs, who served as chair of the Commission, prevented the presentation of evidence about the dates of Walker's move. The Commission then voted 6-0 to sustain Arntsen's challenge to 57 signatures and rejected it for 48 signatures. The Commission also voted on whether to sustain Arntsen's challenge to 1,834 signatures on nomination papers that contained Walker's earlier address. The Commission deadlocked, with 3 Democratic appointees voting to sustain Arntsen's challenge and 3 Republican appointees voting to deny it. Therefore, Arntsen failed to meet his burden to prove 2The meeting can be viewed in its entirety at https://wiseye.org/2020/08/20/wisconsin-elections-commission-special-teleconferencemeeting-10/. any insufficiency of the addresses for Walker listed on the nomination papers. Wis. Admin. Code § EL 2.07(3)(a). At that point, the Green Party candidates had 3,909 presumptively valid signatures pursuant to §EL 2.05(4) (3,966 filed less 57 signatures rejected by the Commission).
¶22However, notwithstanding the Commission's vote on August 20, 2020, on August 21, 2020, the Commission Administrator sent Hawkins and Walker a letter stating that since the Commission had certified a total of only 1,789 signatures, less than the 2,000 required for ballot access, Hawkins' and Walker's names would not be on the ballot for the November 3, 2020 general election. There is no explanation in that communication about how the Commission disallowed an additional 2,177 signatures that were presumptively valid after the Commission voted to invalidate only 57 of the 3,966 signatures submitted. The Commission Administrator must have treated Arntsen's challenge to 1,834 signatures as having been proved, even though the Commission had voted not to sustain his challenge.
¶23 On August 26, 2020, the Commission certified the independent candidates for President and Vice President. On September 1, 2020, the Commission certified the party candidates for President and Vice President to the county clerks. The September 1, 2020 communication notified the county clerks of the legal challenge to ballot access that had been filed by Kanye West and Michelle Tidball and that there were media statements from the Green Party candidates that they intended to file a court action to gain ballot access. Therefore, at least by September 1, 2020, the county clerks knew that the Commission's certification may not be the final ballot for the November 3, 2020 general election.
¶24 The Green Party filed suit seeking ballot access on September 3, 2020. Perhaps, the Green Party could have filed suit on August 26, 2020, when the Commission certified the independent candidates. However, lawsuits take time to gather relevant documents and affidavits needed to proceed . In addition, the county clerks were on notice from September 1, 2020, when the Commission certified the final ballot for the November 3, 2020 election, that the Green Party would likely file suit and that Kanye West already had filed suit for ballot access.
¶25 This lawsuit is not about the Green Party sleeping on its rights. It is about the treatment that independent candidates from a small political party received from the Commission, who repeatedly refused to follow the law relative to nomination papers.
¶26 It has been said that transparency is the best medicine for curbing governmental practices that abuse the rights of those who must interact with government. The Commission ignored its legal obligations under Wis. Admin. Code §§EL 2.05(4) and EL 2.07(3)(a), and in so doing it suppressed the rights of voters to choose Green Party candidates for President and Vice President. The court's Order is silent on the Commission's unlawful conduct and imposes no consequences for what it has done. The court's silence not only affirms lawless conduct by the Commission, but also provides no directive for the required treatment of nomination papers in the future.
¶27Silently affirming lawless conduct that has been brought to the court's attention is an abdication of the court's obligation to stand with the law, even when doing so is uncomfortable. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the Order and join the opinion of Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler that follows.
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The national Green Party press release is reproduced in full below:
Greens Denounce Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision
(Syracuse, NY – September 14, 2020) Green Party nominees for President and Vice President, Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, rejected the decision handed down earlier today by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to deny placing them on the November 2020 ballot. The Green Party has been on the ballot in Wisconsin for every presidential election since 1996.
Several years ago, the workers of Wisconsin occupied the state capitol building with shouts of “this is what democracy looks like.” Angela Walker mobilized her Milwaukee transit workers local union into that defense of workers’ rights. Unfortunately, today, the state Supreme Court demonstrated something completely different from what most people consider to be democracy: a choice on their ballot.
“The court majority failed to recognize the partisan Wisconsin Election Commission’s repeated unlawful actions, said Andrea Mérida, campaign manager.” Mérida continued, “now we have a dangerous precedent where a major party can effectively decide which minor parties can participate in elections, by conjuring up arbitrary requirements on the fly to remove its opposition. Regardless, the fact remains that we met all of the legal requirements for ballot access and followed the WEC’s instructions to the letter with regards to Angela Walker’s change of residence.”
“We were screwed. As the dissenting opinion explains, the actual facts and the law show that we are qualified for the ballot. Partisan hacks should not be running elections for their own parties. They set up the absentee ballot snafu. The decision is a travesty of justice,” said Hawkins.
“Our campaign rejects the idea that we should be punished for what the court majority considers an untimely legal response. As noted in the dissenting opinion, our campaign filed only two days after the Commission certified their list of independent candidates. As a working-class campaign that cannot afford attorneys on retainer, unlike the two major parties, it takes time for us to find legal representation, formulate a response and file documents,” Angela Walker said.
The campaign is currently weighing its legal options, and Wisconsinites may now have to write-in Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker in order to vote for the only presidential ticket that fights for a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and fair elections and ballot access. The campaign vows to continue to fight alongside the Wisconsin Green Party to regain its ballot status, which will require one percent of the statewide vote, or about 20,000 votes.
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