State Supreme Court erred in taking up ballot case

The Wisconsin Supreme Court made the wrong choice last week when liberal justices agreed to bypass the normal appeals process and take up a request from presidential candidate Robert Kennedy to have his name removed from the state’s ballots.

Wisconsin law is clear when it comes to elections. After the deadline, the only way to get your name off the ballot is to die. For independent candidates like Kennedy, that deadline was in early August. That was the ruling when the request was brought to the Wisconsin Election Commission nearly a month after the deadline and was the ruling made early last week by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke.

“Courts are required to apply the law as written, not as some party wishes it were written,” Ehlke said in issuing his ruling.

It should be noted that under state laws, Republican and Democratic Party candidates have a deadline after their national conventions in order to get the name on the ballot. Despite what idealists may hope for, the existing two-party system is firmly entrenched in election laws.

Normally when parties are unhappy with the outcome of a case it goes to the appeals court where judges review briefs, may request oral statements and make a decision. If the people involved are still unhappy, they can request a review by the supreme court. The supreme court can pick and choose what cases it hears and typically focuses on major issues of law that will impact the whole state.

It would be foolish to consider that Kennedy, who at best polled just above 5% among state voters, was ever going to win in Wisconsin. Like most independent candidates, Kennedy was running as a spoiler hoping to lure enough voters from the two major parties in order to impact the election. As was evidenced by his actions and endorsement in suspending active campaigning, the would-be campaign was all about his own political future and attempting to secure the best possible spot in an upcoming administration — that is if he can avoid charges over cutting the head off a beached whale and bringing it home.

With polling showing the presidential race as being up in the air in Wisconsin, a matter of a few thousands votes could make a difference. The question is if people who don’t like one candidate, but who can’t bring themselves to vote for the other, will choose Kennedy as a protest vote.

Who voters choose to vote for is their choice. Justices erred in agreeing to review the case on procedural grounds. At the very least it should have gone through the appeals court process where the judge would very likely find that Kennedy missed the deadlines.

In making their error, justices became clouded in their thinking that this was solely a legal debate. When it comes to elections, deadlines matter on a very real and practical level outside of any legal theories.

The deadlines exist in order to give local clerks time to get the ballots printed and ballot counting equipment programmed. In the case of the November 5 election, thousands of absentee ballots have already been sent out. State law requires clerks to send out requested absentee ballots by September 19. For ballots requested after that date, clerks have between 24 and 48 hours to send out any ballots requested.

The argument over whether or not Kennedy’s name should be on the ballot is moot, unless the court is going to intentionally muddy the election waters by making ballot changes after the fact.

Kennedy was the proverbial day late and dollar short when it came to meeting the deadline to withdraw his name. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has erred in allowing this farcical waste of court resources to continue and is doing a disservice to those who actually follow the rules.