Mr. Trump lost Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, and he lagged the state’s GOP Congressmen by 63,547. Split tickets by Republicans more than explain why Mr. Trump fell short. Drop boxes were an unlawful delivery method, but if real Wisconsinites put real ballots into them, as instructed by local officials, that isn’t “fraud.” Judges are unlikely to throw out legitimate votes after the fact.
That’s actually what happened in Wisconsin. Mr. Trump didn’t raise hell about the state’s voting procedures until after he lost. Then he asked courts to invalidate 28.4% of the votes in Milwaukee County, on the basis of challenged practices that took place statewide. That case failed. The drop box lawsuit decided Friday was filed in 2021 by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. If Mr. Trump was so opposed to drop boxes, why didn’t he bring a claim earlier in 2020, when the WEC memos were issued?
Former Attorney General Bill Barr told a podcast recentlythat Mr. Trump was duly warned to get solid lawyers working to defend business-as-usual voting processes.
“One of his aides went in and said, look, you need to set up a fund of $20-30 million in escrow, because lawyers don’t trust you to pay their bills, and you need to get a top-flight firm in here,” Mr. Barr said. “He ignored that advice. He did not have a legal team prepared to go and fight around the country. So a lot of these, bending of the playing field, were his own fault.”