after a federal judge this week rejected a lawsuit seeking to block the rule.
Four Wisconsin voters, represented by attorneys with national Democratic law firm Elias Law Group, sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission in October arguing that the state’s witness signature rule runs afoul of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and threatens to disenfranchise eligible voters.
Under state law, election clerks must reject absentee ballots that are missing a witness’s address or signature.
The firm of former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias has lost another election case in a spectacular fashion. The Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin, James Peterson (an Obama appointee), did not just reject but ridiculed the Elias Law Group challenge to a witness requirement for absentee voting. Elias has been previously sanctioned in court and accused of lying in the Steele dossier scandal by journalists and others.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled against the lawsuit brought by the Elias Law Group, arguing that the witness requirement violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1964.