UPDATED: What's The Trump Strategy In Wisconsin?

Shipwreckedcrew has detailed article up that examines the Trump team strategy in Wisconsin, where Biden supposedly has a 43K vote lead out of 3.2 million total votes:

Trump Campaign Focusing on Unlawful Use of Absentee Ballot Process to Avoid Wisconsin ID Requirement

What makes election law so complicated is that Congress has never exercised its constitutional authority to legislate in any comprehensive manner--to provide us with uniform election laws on a national basis. So, while it may come as no surprise to learn that the Trump campaign is focusing on absentee ballots, there are inevitable twists in Wisconsin law that make this effort unique. SWC goes through it all.

Here's the essence of what matters in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin it's relatively easy to register to vote without presenting a photo ID. HOWEVER, it's not so easy to apply for an absentee ballot without presenting a photo ID. MOREOVER, Wisconsin law explicitly states that absentee voting is a privilege, that all procedures are mandatory--they must be followed for the purpose of avoiding fraud--and that failure to comply invalidates the ballot in question.

With that in mind, the way you can vote absentee in Wisconsin while avoiding the normal requirement to provide a photo ID is to self-designate as being “indefinitely confined by age, physical illness, or infirmity, or is disabled for an indefinite period of time.” (We covered this in an earlier post.) Naturally, the county clerks in ultra Left Dane and Milwaukee counties, in the leadup to the election, publicly encouraged people to apply for absentee ballots for the express purpose of avoiding the photo ID requirement. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin ordered the clerks to knock it off--slapping an injunction on them. But of course the harm was already done and no other relief was requested. 

SWC believes that it's that class of absentee ballots that the Wisconsin recount is targeting. The recount will seek to lower the margin, and then the absentee ballots will be targeted for those that evaded the photo ID requirement by self designating as indefinitely confined.

My understanding, and I can't find the link right now, is that there was a record number of such ballots cast. The likelihood of fraud is high, and the margin is on the low side by comparison.

UPDATE: The Thomas More Society (a Catholic legal organization) has filed an emergency petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The petition targets exactly that class of ballots described above--absentee ballots requested by persons "self designating" as "indefinitely confined"--a designation which allows those persons to evade the requirement to submit a photo ID. You can read the petition here. You can also read a fairly good account here.

Here are two paragraphs from the petition that provide some of the more interesting details. You'll see the clear reference to the intent to circumvent the photo ID requirement:

2. A systematic effort was lunched in Wisconsin, using millions of dollars in private money sourced to Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook billionaire to illegally circumvent Wisconsin absentee voting laws, including primarily one absentee voting law which is the sole exception to Wisconsin‘ photo TD law, to cast tens of thousands of illegal absentee ballots.

3... As set forth below, the Zuckerberg—funded private organization, the Center for Technology and Civic Lie, gifted over $6,000,000 to the Cities of Racine, Kenosha, Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee, all Democrat Party strongholds, in order for those cites to facilitate the use of absentee voting in violation of Wisconsin law.

Later in the petition (#51, 56) the Thomas More Society argues that this "gift" in fact violates Wisconsin law, in that Wisconsin cities and counties--which are created by Wisconsin statutory law--are only allowed to take in revenue from taxes and various types of fees and state grants. NOT "gifts" from billionaire activists.

Then (#68) the Thomas More Society points out that the agreement that these cities and counties entered into (previously described in the petition) violated Wisconsin law because it the agreement had the explicit intent to encourage absentee voting. In fact, however, Wisconsin law explicitly seeks to prevent such encouragement:

The legislature finds that the privilege of voting by absentee ballot must be carefully regulated to prevent the potential for Fraud or abuse; to prevent overzealous solicitation of absent electors who may prefer not to participate in an election; to prevent undue influence on an absent elector to vote for or against a candidate or to cast a particular vote in a referendum; or other similar abuses.

They then go on to argue (D. #84ff) that Jefferson and Dane counties illegally encouraged voters to vote absent by appealing to Covid--when in fact Covid does not render these people "indefinitely confined" for purposes of Wisconsin law. It was simply a ploy to avoid the photo ID requirement--which strongly suggests fraud.

There's a lot more technical argumentation, but here's the bottom line:

IV. — The government data report and estimates support that the election result is void.

15. Petitioners have submitted the government data report of their expert Matthew Braynard.

116. — The results show that the election result is void because of illegal votes counted, legal votes not counted, counting errors and election official illegalities.

117, — The estimate of ballots requested in the name of a registered Republican by someone other than that person is 14,426.

118. — The estimate of Republican ballots that the requester returned but were not counted is 12,071.

19. The total of these two categories is 26,497—enough to change the election result.

120. — Further, the estimate of persons who voted where they did not reside is 26,673.

121. —The estimate of electors who avoided Wisconsin Voter ID laws by voting absentee as an indefinitely confined" elector and were not indefinitely confined is 96,437.

122. The estimate of out of state residents voting in Wisconsin is 6,966.

123. — The estimate of people double voting in Wisconsin is 234.

124, — The total, including all categories, is 156,807—enough to change the election result.

Seems like rampant fraud to me.