WASHINGTON -- The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up an election challenge filed by President Donald Trump's campaign, ruling that under state law, he should have sought a hearing first in a lower-level court.
Trump's campaign could still seek to challenge President-elect Joe Biden's lead of about 20,700 votes in Wisconsin Circuit Court. But the refusal of the battleground state's highest court to take up Trump's petition is a new blow to his foundering efforts to overturn the election -- and a particularly stinging rebuke given that conservatives hold a 4-to-3 majority on the elected panel.
A conservative member of the court, Brian Hagedorn, joined the three more-liberal members in declining to take the case.
In a concurring opinion, he wrote, "We do well as a judicial body to abide by time-tested judicial norms, even -- and maybe especially -- in high-profile cases. Following the law governing challenges to election results is no threat to the rule of law."
Hagedorn wrote that the court should decline to take the case so the Trump campaign could "promptly exercise" its right to seek action in a lower court.
"Following this law is not disregarding our duty, as some of my colleagues suggest," the judge said. "It is following the law."
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers praised the decision: "I was frankly amazed that it was not unanimous," he said.
Wisconsin this week certified Biden's victory, setting the stage for a Democratic slate of electors to cast the state's 10 electoral votes for him.
Trump's campaign had argued that the matter was of such pressing and urgent concern that it should be considered immediately by the high court. In its petition, it argued that more than 221,000 ballots cast in the state's two most Democratic counties were improperly accepted by election officials and should be thrown out.
The campaign did not allege that individual voters committed fraud or engaged in wrongdoing, but rather that election officials misinterpreted state law regarding several large categories of ballots.
That included all ballots cast early and in person in the two counties. The campaign challenged the practices, even though they were identical to those in place statewide and were unchanged from the 2016 election, which Trump won.
The state Supreme Court agreed that Wisconsin law allows for a challenge from a person who loses after a recount -- which Trump sought and which confirmed his defeat by Biden. But the state high court said the law requires that the challenge be filed first in circuit court.
A candidate gets five days to file such a challenge, a window that will close Monday. Presidential electors are due to cast their votes Dec. 14.
Trump attorney Jim Troupis said he would immediately file the case in circuit court and expected to be back before the Supreme Court "very soon."
"It was clear from their writings that the court recognizes the seriousness of these issues, and we look forward to taking the next step," he said in a statement.
3 DISSENTING VOTES
Three of the court's conservative members appeared more open to the Trump campaign's arguments and said they wanted to take the case.
"Petitioners assert troubling allegations of noncompliance with Wisconsin's election laws by public officials on whom the voters rely to ensure free and fair elections," wrote Justice Rebecca Bradley on behalf of the group. "The majority's failure to embrace its duty (or even an impulse) to decide this case risks perpetuating violations of the law by those entrusted to follow it."
Bradley wrote that the court "forsakes its duty" by not determining whether elections officials complied with the law and the inaction will undermine the public's confidence in elections. Allowing the elections commission to make the law governing elections would be a "death blow to democracy," she wrote.
"While some will either celebrate or decry the court's inaction based upon the impact on their preferred candidate, the importance of this case transcends the results of this particular election," she wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justice Annette Ziegler. "The majority's failure to act leaves an indelible stain on our most recent election."
The judicial discussion did not indicate how the court would ultimately view the merits of the campaign's arguments should the matter return to the state's highest court. Nor did justices offer any indication that they believed that overturning the election would be the proper recourse if the court decides to eventually hear it. Roggensack, a Republican, wrote that she believed the court should take the case to decide whether the state gave incorrect advice to local clerks about how to run the election.
"However, doing so does not necessarily lead to striking absentee ballots that were cast by following incorrect ... advice," she wrote. "The remedy Petitioners seek may be out of reach for a number of reasons."
But in a dissent in which she was joined by Ziegler, Roggensack said she would have taken the case and referred it to lower courts for factual findings, which could then be reported back to the Supreme Court for a ruling.
Trump also filed a lawsuit in federal court late Wednesday, challenging the Wisconsin results. That case argues that state elections officials violated so many state laws in running the election that it violated constitutional provisions assigning the job for deciding how to choose presidential electors to the state legislature.
The practices to which the president objected were similar to those his campaign has challenged that have been in place for years and were applied to ballots across the state.
JUSTICE LIAISON BANNED
Separately, the official serving as Trump's eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the past two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department's work on election fraud, the people said.
Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department demanding they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The Justice Department declined to comment. Attempts to reach Stirrup for comment were not immediately successful.
On Thursday, Trump appointed Stirrup to the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy, according to a White House news release. She previously was a central figure in the Trump administration's push for hard-line immigration policies.
Earlier this week, Attorney General William Barr said U.S. attorneys and the FBI had looked into allegations of election irregularities and found no evidence of widespread voting fraud that would change the outcome of the election.
Trump shot back at Barr on Thursday, saying the Justice Department "hasn't looked very hard" and calling it a disappointment. But he stopped short of implying that Barr's future as attorney general could be cut short.
"Ask me that in a number of weeks from now," Trump said when asked if he still has confidence in Barr.
"They should be looking at all of this fraud," Trump said.
Information for this article was contributed by Rosalind Helderman of The Washington Post; and by Michael Balsamo, Zeke Miller and Scott Bauer of The Associated Press.