After seven days of recounting ballots in Wisconsin, the effort is proving to be a huge waste of time and money.
With about 70 percent of ballots recounted, “not including the City of Milwaukee, Clinton/Kaine have gained 82 more votes than Trump/Pence, but still trail,” according to the Wisconsin Election Commission.
That means instead of Trump/Pence winning the state by 22,177, they only really won by 22,095.
The recount was initiated by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who paid $3.5 million in donated money to make it happen. Through Tuesday, Stein had picked up a total of 60 votes. In other words, those votes cost about $58,000 each through day seven, though the figure could go down some if Stein picks up a few more votes before next week’s deadline.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
The recount is on schedule to finish by the Monday deadline for local officials and the Tuesday deadline for the state, with 34 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and the city of Milwaukee already finished, according to the state commission and Milwaukee Election Commission executive director Neil Albrecht. Some of the state’s biggest counties, including Dane and Brown, are still counting by hand or machine, however.
The Wisconsin Election Commission website details the progress of results so far, as well as some of the issues behind the changes.
“Trump/Pence are up 410 votes, Clinton/Kaine are up 492 votes, Castle/Bradley are up 12 votes, Johnson/Weld are up 46 votes, Stein/Baraka are up 60 votes, Moorehead/Lilly are up 9 votes, and De la Fuente/Steinberg are up 7 votes,” according to the WEC.
“So far, most changes between canvass results and recount results are due to human error. In the City of Marinette, the Marinette County Board of Canvassers discovered that the use of nonstandard ink pens caused approximately 309 absentee ballots out of more than 20,000 cast countywide to be undercounted,” officials wrote.
“Because they were absentee ballots, poll workers should have recognized the problem and remade the ballots using standard pens that would be read by the optical scanner. All Marinette County ballots were hand-recounted, resulting in 118 additional votes for Trump/Pence and 166 additional votes for Clinton/Kaine.”
The commission also addressed “fake news” circulating on social media, including Trump/Pence ballots allegedly double counted in Waukesha County, face-up versus face-down ballots into voting machines, and broken seals on a machine in St. Croix County.
Stein initiated recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, where Trump won by just over 10,000 votes. The Michigan elections board halted the effort yesterday after an appeals court found Stein could not seek a recount because she garnered only 1 percent of the vote and provided no evidence of fraud, ABC News reports.
About 20 counties had begun the recount process by day three, when the appeals court ruled against Stein.
She’s also scheduled for a hearing on Friday for a potential recount in Pennsylvania, where Stein has called the state’s election system “a national disgrace” but not provided any evidence to back her claims, the Philly Voice reports.
Trump’s official lead in Pennsylvania is 44,000 votes out of more than 6 million cast.
Leave a Comment
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.