LATE UPDATE, August 26, 2016, 4:30 PM ET: Trump was on the ballot as of Friday afternoon.
ORIGINAL STORY:
As of Thursday morning, Minnesota residents who look up a sample of their November ballot choices can see they have the option of ticking the box for Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, Jill Stein for the Green Party, and even Evan McMullin, the independent who launched a longshot anti-Trump campaign earlier this month.
But in a glaring omission, GOP nominee Donald Trump is not on the ballot.
It appears the state GOP has waited until the eleventh hour to formally file to get Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, on the ballot. The deadline for major party candidates to file to get on the ballot is Monday. For non-major party candidates, the deadline has already passed.
As of Wednesday night, the Minnesota Republican Party had not yet filed the necessary paperwork, local news station KARE11 reported.
That news caused a bit of a freakout among pro-Trump conservatives.
The state GOP did not respond to requests for comment from TPM.
This story has been updated.
Understandable.
The Minnesota Republican Party is a joke.
They nearly got kicked out of their party headquarters for not paying the rent, they have been constantly embroiled in personal vendettas and endless lawsuits against each other and contradict each other in the Press all the time.
They are at best a “Keystone Cops” organization in MN.
Obviously thet’ve been hoping Donnie would be declared dead due to a lack of brain activity. Sad.
“This is a non-issue,” Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said. “He is not running for president of Minnesota.”
Ballots are just words…they don’t matter.
Seriously though, this is some major league incompetence on display, all down the line. The Trump campaign should have had this taken care of months ago…the RNC should have already caught this via double checking months ago…the state party should have flagged this if the Trump campaign and the RNC missed it months ago.
Rigged by incompetence!