Democrats have lost their effort to block left-wing presidential candidate Jill Stein from the ballot in Wisconsin - the latest setback in a Democratic effort to use "lawfare" to control the outcome of the 2024 election.

As a Green Party candidate in 2016, Stein received more votes in Wisconsin than Trump's narrow margin of victory over Hillary Clinton.

Dems fail to block candidate

While Democrats frequently claim to champion democracy, they have made numerous efforts to eliminate voters' choices at the polls.

Most prominently, Democrats pushed to disqualify Trump from the ballot in 2024, but the effort was unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Democrats have also targeted ballot access for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously approved Stein's ballot access in February because the Green Party won more than 1% of the vote in a statewide race in 2022.

The Democratic National Committee filed a complaint Wednesday saying Stein is ineligible because the Green Party does not hold any statewide offices in Wisconsin.

"We take the nomination process for President and Vice President very seriously and believe every candidate should follow the rules," said Adrienne Watson, a senior adviser to the DNC.

"Because the Wisconsin Green Party hasn’t fielded candidates for legislative or statewide office and doesn’t have any current incumbent legislative or statewide office holders, it cannot nominate candidates and should not be on the ballot in November."

Supporting democracy?

The Wisconsin Elections Commission dismissed the complaint Friday because it names the commissioners as respondents. Democrats are pledging to go to court.

Meanwhile, Stein is pledging to fight back, dismissing the case as "anti-democratic shenanigans."

"This is a fishing expedition conjured up by the DNC, and is in line with their statements back in March that they will hire an army of lawyers and infiltrators to find any angle of attack to prevent Green Party ballot access," said Jason Call, Stein's campaign manager. "We absolutely will be hiring counsel to defend our ballot line in Wisconsin."

Stein received 30,980 Wisconsin votes in 2016, greater than Trump's margin of 27,000.

Obviously, Democrats are afraid Stein will spoil the race for Democrat Kamala Harris this time around.

Trump's victories in the "Blue Wall" states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin secured his path to the White House in 2016, and they remain some of the most fiercely contested battleground states.