MUSKEGO, WI — The Democratic-backed challenge to Pete Karas’s nomination papers for Wisconsin Secretary of State is dead. Attorney Stacie Rosenzweig of Halling & Cayo S.C., representing challenger Gregory Walz-Chojnacki, notified the Wisconsin Elections Commission this morning that the challenge is being dropped. The reason? The Karas campaign fought back hard, and he won.
Let’s be honest about what just happened: Democrats hired a Milwaukee law firm to knock the Green Party off the ballot. It didn’t work.
“They couldn’t find a single fraudulent signature. They couldn’t name a single unqualified voter. They couldn’t identify one signer who was confused or misled,” said Karas. “So they threw hypertechnical garbage at the wall and hoped the Wisconsin Elections Commission would do their dirty work for them. The Commission didn’t get the chance — because we buried them in affidavits, legal arguments, and the truth.”
The Party of ‘Democracy’ Tried to Eliminate Your Choices
Democrats love to talk about protecting democracy. Then they hire lawyers to make sure you can’t vote for anyone but them. It’s their strategy.
In 2024, Democrats worked to challenge Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s ballot access in Wisconsin. In 2020, they succeeded, and Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins was knocked off the Wisconsin ballot entirely in a process widely condemned as a coordinated partisan attack. Wisconsin courts and election officials became instruments of two-party suppression.
Now in 2026, they’re trying it again — against a Secretary of State candidate whose circulators were all sworn Wisconsin residents, whose thousands of signers were all qualified voters, and whose nomination papers were filed in full good faith using forms obtained directly from municipal websites.
“The Democratic Party would rather spend money on lawyers than earn votes on the merits,” said Karas. “That tells you everything about how confident they are in their own candidate and how much they fear a real alternative.”
What They Were Really Afraid Of
Pete Karas on the 2026 ballot isn’t just a choice for Wisconsin voters this November. A strong Green Party showing in the Secretary of State race locks in automatic Wisconsin ballot access for the Green Party in the 2028 presidential election cycle. The Democratic establishment knows this. That’s why they came after this race specifically. That’s why they hired the lawyers. That’s why they filed the challenge on a weekend when the Elections Commission was closed, and the campaign had 72 hours to respond.
It was a calculated ambush. It failed.
We’re Still Standing
The Karas campaign was forced to retain legal counsel, gather sworn affidavits from 13 circulators across Wisconsin, and file a comprehensive verified response — all over a single weekend. Every dollar spent on lawyers was a dollar not spent talking to voters. That’s exactly what the Democrats wanted.
“We fought back anyway,” said Karas. “We’re still on the ballot. We’re still running. And every Wisconsin voter who’s disgusted by what they just watched the Democratic Party try to do should know: there’s a place for you on November 3rd. Vote Green.”
