Attorney heading up Trump campaign’s Wisconsin recount effort is seeking to throw out his own vote
The lawyer main President Donald Trump’s recount effort in Wisconsin voted illegally according to his own legal argument that in-person absentee ballots needs to be thrown out. So did his spouse.
Jim Troupis, a former Dane County decide and Cross Plains lawyer who is representing the Trump marketing campaign, wouldn’t reply questions on why he and his spouse voted that manner.
Troupis and his spouse voted early utilizing the state’s in-person absentee possibility — considered one of a gaggle of voters whose ballots the Trump marketing campaign has requested election officers to deem unlawful.
Their names appeared on displays Troupis submitted to the Dane County Board of Canvassers on Sunday, throughout the county’s third day of retallying ballots. The displays embrace lists of voters who voted in a way the marketing campaign alleges is unlawful, an argument the Board of Canvassers has rejected. The data was supplied by Dane County to each campaigns.
Election updates: Christie calls Trump legal team ‘national embarrassment’; Hogan tells Trump ‘stop golfing and concede’
“I’m sure I’m on that list,” he mentioned, whereas referring different questions to the recount effort’s communications group, which incorporates Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Andrew Hitt.
Trump requested for the recount after President-elect Joe Biden defeated him by about 20,000 votes in Wisconsin. The recount started Friday, with the retallying of ballots starting in earnest on Saturday. In Milwaukee, election officers mentioned Sunday that counting would proceed till after Thanksgiving.
Troupis launched the displays of absentee voter lists on Sunday as a manner to set up proof for an anticipated authorized problem.
Diane Welsh, a Madison-based lawyer for Biden’s marketing campaign, objected to the Trump marketing campaign doing so within the midst of the recount.
“This is not a litigation prep session, this is a recount,” Welsh said during a brief hearing at Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison where the recount is taking place.
When the recount began Friday, the Trump campaign quickly raised objections aimed at tossing tens of thousands of ballots — objections that were rejected. In Milwaukee, its initial objections were more procedural.
Keeping track: Here are the GOP lawmakers who have called on Trump to acknowledge Biden’s victory
Christ Troupis, another representative for Trump’s campaign and the brother of Jim Troupis, told the Dane County Board of Canvassers on Friday that it should eliminate all in-person early votes; all mailed-in absentee ballots if written applications for them could not be tracked down; all votes submitted by those who say they are indefinitely confined; and all absentee ballots where clerks wrote in the addresses of witnesses.
In Milwaukee County, Trump campaign attorney Stewart Karge asked to review or receive copies of absentee ballot applications and to reject ballots that could not be reconciled.
“I’m not authorized to grant that request for the reasons stated in the election guide,” Board of Canvassing Chair Tim Posnanski said. He added that even if it weren’t laid out in the election guide, he felt the Election Commission did not have the ability to comply with records requests.
The Trump campaign has filed an open records request with the City of Milwaukee to view copies of the absentee ballot requests. Karge said he did not think that request would be fulfilled in a timely manner.
The city’s counting had been delayed because there were so many objections to ballot envelopes, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said, adding that the city lost two days of counting.
The most recent issue to arise was observers taking pictures of ballots, which potentially raises problems because it could be possible to identify individual voters in communities that use central count facilities to tally their absentee ballots, Christenson said.
“We have agreed already to provide all of the images of the ballots cast throughout this recount to the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign, but we will redact any voter numbers that are listed for central count,” he said.
Christenson estimated a “handful” of people had been removed from the recount over the last three days, largely for “unruly behavior” or a violation of the mask requirement.
Contributing: Jordyn Noenning and Alison Dirr, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.
This article initially appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin recount: Trump attorney seeks to throw out his own ballot
