ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 9 (UPI) — Minnesota Democrats have filed a lawsuit seeking to have Donald Trump and Mike Pence kicked off the ballot in November after the state party failed to follow election law in selecting the slate of names that will appear.
The matter stems from a legal technicality involving alternate delegates to the electoral college. The Minnesota constitution states electoral college delegates and their alternates must be elected at the party’s convention. The GOP picked its electoral college delegates at the party convention on Aug. 24, but did not pick alternates.
When the party submitted its ballot paperwork on the day of the deadline, Aug. 29, it did not include that information. Party leaders were forced to scramble and did not have time to reconvene a statewide convention to fix the oversight, so the slate of alternates was chosen by the party’s executive committee, instead.
The oversight caused a brief panic when the presidential ticket did not appear on a list on the Minnesota secretary of state website the day of the deadline. GOP leaders scrambled to get the paperwork in on time and it appeared they were successful, with the state saying all paperwork had been received prior to the deadline.
Now, Democrats have filed suit in Minnesota state Supreme Court, arguing the Republicans cut corners.
“The Minnesota GOP did not elect to elect alternate presidential electors at the state convention earlier this year. After being notified that they had failed to provide the names of alternative electors by the Secretary of State’s office, Republicans decided to appoint alternate electors in a closed-door meeting rather than electing them. This is violation of state law,” the Minnesota Democratic Farm Labor Party statement reads.
