State Republican Party Chairman Keith Downey said Friday that a DFL lawsuit to block Donald Trump from Minnesota's presidential ballot is "a blatant and frivolous attempt to disenfranchise" voters, while the secretary of state warned the state Supreme Court it must move very quickly to settle the matter.
DFL Party Chair Ken Martin filed a petition with the state's high court a day earlier seeking to remove Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, on a legal technicality. The petition takes issue with the method by which Republicans selected alternate presidential electors.
The matter is of some urgency: Early voting in Minnesota starts on Sept. 23. In a court filing Friday, Secretary of State Steve Simon wrote that the Supreme Court must decide by Monday whether or not Trump and Pence are eligible for the ballot.
In a separate affidavit, a legal adviser in Simon's office said Minnesota counties already have printed about a million general election ballots.
The DFL petition says that Simon, a DFLer, erred when he accepted the state GOP's "certificate of nomination" for the Trump-Pence ticket.
A spokesman said Simon would not publicly comment on the lawsuit.
In a brief order posted Friday morning, Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea told the DFL to explain why it waited to file its suit, hinting that it could be dismissed for that reason. The GOP's filing blunder came to light more than a week ago.
In response, the DFL said it prepared its petition as quickly as possible and argued that it would be wrong to dismiss the challenge because of timing.