Wisconsin governor: Trump legal challenges an 'assault on democracy'

Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers called Trump's election-related lawsuits in the state an "assault on democracy" on Wednesday, ABC News reports.

The Trump campaigned filed a lawsuit in the state of Wisconsin late Tuesday evening suggesting that roughly 221,000 ballots cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties, counties which Biden won by a 2-1 margin, should be disqualified. Biden maintains a lead in the state by less than 21,000 votes.

Trump's lawsuits seeks to discard four categories of ballots submitted in the counties. The majority of challenged ballots, 170,140 absentee ballots submitted in person by early voters, are alleged by the Trump campaign to have been improperly requested by voters.

Another 28,395 absentee ballots are being challenged due to being submitted by "indefinitely confined" voters, a self-designation made by voters who say, for any reason, that they are unable to leave their residence. The lawsuit also challenges 17,271 absentee ballots collected by poll workers and 5,517 where missing information on the envelopes was filled in by poll clerks.

"President Trump’s (lawsuit) seeks nothing less than to overturn the will of nearly 3.3 million Wisconsin voters," Evers' attorneys said of Trump's lawsuit. “It is a shocking and outrageous assault on our democracy."

"He is simply trying to seize Wisconsin’s electoral votes, even though he lost the statewide election," he continued.

Under American law, presidential candidates are allowed to challenge the results of presidential elections in individual states until the electoral college officially casts their votes for President on December 14.

Governor Evers argues that poll workers are allowed to fill in missing information on envelopes and have been doing so for four years, and further argues that, since 2011, envelopes count as written requests for ballots. The governor is also arguing that the concern over ballots from "indefinitely confined" voters should have been raised prior to the election.

The Wisconsin governor also claimed that Trump's targeting of Milwaukee and Dane county is a "partisan" attempt to overturn ballots only in Democratic areas of the state. The Biden campaign, however, has every right to make similar challenges in counties where Trump was victorious.