A judge has ruled that Kanye West does not qualify to be on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin after missing a filing deadline by just 14 seconds.
Brown County Circuit Judge John Zakowski made the call on Friday, after the rapper narrowly missed a 5pm deadline to get on the presidential ballot on 4 August.
According to WCTI12, attorneys spent around three hours on Wednesday night arguing exactly when West's nomination papers were filed.
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But eventually Zakowski ruled in favour of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, determining that it was correct in determining West missed the 5pm cut-off.
"The unfortunate fact is this dispute could have been avoided had the West representatives simply arrived earlier," Zakowski said.
"Candidates need to plan ahead and arrive in time to get into the building and file the papers in the office of the commission prior to the deadline, there are no exceptions under the statute or the relevant case law."
West had tried to argue that the deadline did not expire until 5.01pm, and that timings aside, commission staff had still accepted the papers.
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According to the lawsuit, staff should have unlocked the building's doors at 4.40pm to allow for late-arriving filers, but it has been locked since the coronavirus pandemic began, meaning West's campaign workers had to call the commission just before 5pm to be let in.
A commission staffer said West's reps hadn't placed the nomination papers on the counter until 5.01pm, and by the time they were organised and officially accepted, it was several minutes past the 5pm deadline.
West, 43, announced his presidential bid back in July, dropping the news on Twitter just four months ahead of election day.
"We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future," he said.
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"I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION."
Although this is the first time he's officially announced himself as in the running for POTUS, Kanye has spoken previously about wanting to become president in 2020.
All the way back in 2015, at the MTV Music Video Awards, Kanye said he would be running in 2020... and, well, here we are.
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Singer John Legend confirmed back in 2018 that West was very serious when he said he would run.
Speaking on the Dan Wootton Interview podcast, he said: "He's said it multiple times. Yeah, I think he's serious.
"I'd guess he'd run as an independent, but he's never told me anything about what party he would run from. But he's said multiple times that he's interested in running for president."
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