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- Trump’s attorney presented a lawsuit to the Wisconsin Supreme Court that seeks to throw out more than 221,000 absentee ballots in two Wisconsin counties.
- The two counties targeted have the highest Black population in Wisconsin.
- A judge told Trump’s lawyer that the case “smacks of racism.”
- No judgement was made at the end of the hearing but it’s unlikely the court would support it, according to HuffPost.
- On the same day, a Trump-appointed federal judge threw out another of the president’s lawsuits.
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On Saturday, a judge at the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared that a Trump lawsuit put before them was a blatant attempt to disenfranchise voters of color.
The lawsuit, pursued by Trump’s attorney Jim Troupis, seeks to throw out more than 221,000 absentee ballots in two Wisconsin counties that Joe Biden won in the presidential election.
Milwaukee and Dane, the areas targeted in the lawsuit, are among the most diverse in all of Wisconsin. Most Black Wisconsinites live in or around those two counties.
Justice Rebecca Dalett noted that they were the “most urban, nonwhite, largest counties” in the state that “voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden.”
Biden won Wisconsin by over 20,000 votes and a margin of 0.6%.
Speaking in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Justice Jill Karofsky argued that Milwaukee and Dane were presumably "targeted because of their diverse populations, because they're urban, I presume, because they vote Democratic."
She continued: "This lawsuit, Mr. Troupis, smacks of racism."
Karofsky added: "I do not know how you can come before this court and possibly ask for a remedy that is unheard of in US history."
At another point in the hearing, the judge said: "What you want is for us to overturn this election so that your king can stay in power. That is so un-American."
Karofsky, a liberal justice, asked Troupis to provide a single example of fraud in Wisconsin. The lawyer was unable to do so, according to HuffPost.
Conservative justices also questioned how it could be just to disqualify ballots in only two counties, the AP reports.
At the end of the hearing, which lasted 90 minutes, no decision was officially reached. It seems unlikely that the court will support the lawsuit, HuffPost says.
On the same day, a federal judge threw out another Trump lawsuit.
Judge Brett Ludwig, who was appointed by Trump, threw out a lawsuit that requested the court order Wisconsin's Republican-controlled legislature to declare their election void results.
Ludwig dismissed the case as "incredible and "extraordinary," according to a 23-page ruling seen by legal news website Law & Crime.