Madison, Wisconsin, — The state elections commission and a special bipartisan panel agreed on Wednesday that Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips should have his case rejected by the state Supreme Court because he filed too late after being left off of Wisconsin's primary ballot.
The top Democrats in Wisconsin only included Joe Biden's name on the April 2 primary ballot, excluding Phillips, who this week petitioned the state's highest court to add his name to the ballot as well. Wisconsin is a battleground state.
Phillips waited too long, according to a combined answer from the bipartisan presidential selection committee and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which failed to send his name in time. The response was presented before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Phillips waited until the last possible moment to take any action, they stated in their court filing.
Phillips was aware that his name was not on the ballot since January 2, but he waited until January 26 to either file a lawsuit or begin a petition campaign, as is required by law, in order to be included in the election.
County clerks are urged to start preparing and distributing ballots "as soon as possible" in order to fulfill the February 15 deadline set by the presidential selection committee and elections commission for mailing ballots to voters serving in the military or abroad.
"It will become increasingly difficult each day for the clerks to feasibly get the ballots ready, delivered, and mailed on time" after Friday, they said, therefore they requested the court to dismiss Phillips' case before then
Since Phillips had an opportunity to collect 8,000 signatures to be included on the ballot, but chose not to do so, the combined group argued that his arguments should be rejected. Also, they claimed that Phillips lacks the authority to question the presidential selection committee's decision to include some candidates on the ballot.
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