The high court’s order was its second this week rebuffing Republican requests that it get involved in the 2020 election outcome. The justices turned away an appeal from Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday.

Also on Friday, the state Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump’s lawsuit challenging Dane and Milwaukee counties’ election results and scheduled oral arguments for noon on Saturday likely in order to provide a ruling before Wisconsin’s presidential electors cast their ballots for Biden on Monday.

The Trump campaign appealed to the state Supreme Court after a circuit court judge earlier Friday rejected the case.

Texas case

Trump had called the lawsuit filed by Texas against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin “the big one” that would end with the Supreme Court undoing Biden’s substantial Electoral College majority and allowing Trump to serve another four years in the White House.

In a brief order, the court said Texas does not have the legal right to sue those states because it “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who have said previously the court does not have the authority to turn away lawsuits between states, said they would have heard Texas’ complaint. But they would not have done as Texas wanted and set aside those four states’ 62 electoral votes for Biden.

Three Trump appointees are on the high court. In his push to get the most recent of his nominees, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed quickly, Trump said she would be needed for any post-election lawsuits. Barrett appears to have participated in both cases this week. No Trump appointee noted a dissent in either case.

Eighteen other states won by Trump in last month’s election, 126 GOP members of Congress — more than half of the House GOP members — and Trump himself joined Texas in calling on the justices to take up the case that sought to stop electors from casting their votes for Biden.

The only House member from Wisconsin to publicly endorse the lawsuit was U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua. The move caused conservative publication RightWisconsin, which has been critical of Trump, to retract its endorsement of Tiffany due to his support for the lawsuit, which legal experts have said has no merit.

The four states sued by Texas had urged the court to reject the case as meritless. They were backed by another 22 states and the District of Columbia.

Trump’s

Wisconsin lawsuit

In rejecting Trump’s lawsuit in Milwaukee County Court Friday morning, Racine County Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek said Wisconsin’s voting laws were properly followed in the Nov. 3 election and that Trump’s attorneys had failed to adequately support their argument that elections officials erroneously interpreted absentee ballot law.

“The real dispute here is whether or not there were erroneous interpretations of law used in the recount in making the determination whether a ballot should be counted or not counted,” Simanek said. “Because the court is satisfied the rules and guidelines applied in each of the disputed areas are reasonable and a correct interpretation of the underlying early absentee voting laws, the certification of the results of the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election after the Dane County and Milwaukee County recounts is affirmed.”

The campaign had asked the court to nullify Gov. Tony Evers’ certification of the results and exclude about 221,000 ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties amounting to more than a quarter of the votes cast there.

The challenged ballots include in-person absentee ballots in which the voter did not submit a separate written application; absentee ballots in which the address on the envelope was incomplete or filled in by a clerk; absentee ballots cast by voters who identified themselves as “indefinitely confined”; and absentee ballots collected at Madison’s “Democracy in the Park” event.

The state Supreme Court originally rejected Trump’s request to bypass lower courts and immediately take up the case, instead ordering the circuit court to first adjudicate the matter, as is outlined in state law. Now that the circuit court ruled against Trump, the case can head to the state’s highest court after it decided to bypass the Court of Appeals.

The state Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn the election result. When the court rejected Trump’s request last week, conservative-backed Justice Brian Hagedorn said “this is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”

The categories of ballots the Trump campaign says are “illegal“ have all been deemed legal and valid by municipal, county and state authorities, and are categories of ballots that have been cast without issue in many previous elections. The Trump campaign is brushing that aside, however, and seeking to void those ballots after they’ve been cast.

All of the practices the campaign rejects have also been used in counties across the state, yet the campaign is focusing on only two largely Democratic counties.

Simanek said absentee ballots cast at a clerk’s office without a separate application are accompanied by an envelope that indicates on its face that it is an official absentee ballot application and certification. The judge alsonoted such applications have been in use continuouslyfor more than 10 years.

Simanek also said state law allows local clerks to fill in missing witness address informationon ballots, and that the practice has been in place for years, notably in the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won.

Simanek dismissed Trump’s opposition to voters who cast their ballot as “indefinitely confined.” Simanek said state law has allowed the “indefinitely confined” status for more than 30 years, which allows voters to self-certify without a doctor’s note or other proof that they are confined due to illness or infirmity, among other things, and can therefore receive their absentee ballot without providing a photo ID.

The judge underscored the fact the status is a self-certification and that it would be understandable during a pandemic that voters may want to use the status to protect their health.

Finally, Simanek rejected Trump’s argument that Madison’s “Democracy in the Park” event was unlawful.During the fall event, volunteer election workers for the Madison City Clerk’s office collected absentee ballots that people had already lawfully requested. Simanek compared the event to a legal extension of absentee ballot drop boxes.

Trump is still awaiting a decision from a federal court in Milwaukee on another case seeking to overturn the state’s election results.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.