Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission

In the November 2020 presidential election, Joseph Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump (plaintiff) in Wisconsin by approximately 21,000 votes. The election was conducted on November 3. On November 30, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) (defendant) certified the election results and appointed Biden’s 10 electors to represent Wisconsin in the Electoral College. Three days later, Trump sued the WEC in federal court seeking to void the election results, arguing that the WEC violated the Electors Clause by unconstitutionally altering the manner in which Wisconsin appointed its electors. Specifically, Trump challenged (1) the rules allowing eligible, indefinitely confined voters to vote absentee without presenting photo identification, which the WEC had issued in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) the rule allowing absentee ballots to be submitted via manned or unmanned ballot drop boxes, which the WEC had issued in August 2020; and (3) the rules regarding how municipal clerks should handle correcting errors in a witness’s address on an absentee ballot, which the WEC had issued in 2016. Absentee ballots needed to be witnessed to be valid. Trump argued that the three challenged WEC rules invited voter fraud, violated Wisconsin state law, and exceeded the bounds of the WEC’s authority to administer elections. The district court ruled for the WEC, holding that the WEC acted within its authority and that Trump’s challenge to the WEC’s rules was untimely. Trump appealed.