US Elections: Wisconsin Officials Say Donald Trump Observers Clog Recount

Election officials in Wisconsin’s largest county accused President Donald Trump’s watchers Saturday of trying to obstruct the counting of presidential results, in some cases challenging all ballot tabs to count.

Trump called for the recount in the highly liberal Milwaukee and Dane counties, hoping to undo the victory of Democrat Joe Biden by about 20,600 votes.

Unprecedented for a recount that reversed such a large margin, Trump’s strategy is widely seen as aimed at eventual judicial challenge, part of a push in key states to undo his electoral defeat.

A steady stream of Republican complaints in Milwaukee greatly delayed the count, County Clerk George Christenson said. He said many Trump watchers were breaking the rules by constantly interrupting the vote counters with questions and comments.

“That is unacceptable,” he said. He said some of Trump’s watchers “clearly don’t know what they are doing.”

Tim Posnanski, a county elections commissioner, told his fellow commissioners that there appeared to be two Trump representatives at some tables where the tabulators counted the ballots, violating the rules that require one observer from each campaign per table.

Posnanski said some Trump representatives appeared to be posing as independents.

At a tally table, a Trump observer objected to each ballot the tabulators removed from a bag simply because they were bent, election officials told the panel.

Posnanski called it “prima facie evidence of bad faith on the part of the Trump campaign.” Then he added: “I want to know what is happening and why there is still obstruction.”

Joe Voiland, a lawyer who spoke to commission members on behalf of the Trump campaign, denied that his side acted in bad faith.

“I want to get to the point of cutting everything down … and not yelling at us,” Voiland said.

At least one Trump observer was escorted out of the building by sheriff’s deputies Saturday after shoving an election official who had lifted his coat from an observer chair. Another Trump observer was fired on Friday for failing to wear a mask as required.

Trump paid $ 3 million, as required by state law, for the partial recount that began Friday and is due to conclude by Dec. 1.

His team is seeking to disqualify ballots where the clerks of elections filled in the missing address information on the certification envelope where the ballot is inserted, even though the practice has long been accepted in Wisconsin.

The campaign also alleges that thousands of absentee ballots do not have proper written documentation and that some absentee voters have improperly declared themselves “indefinitely confined,” a state that allows them to receive a ballot without photo identification. These challenges are being rejected.

There have been at least 31 recount in state elections in the US since the most famous in the 2000 Florida presidential election.

The stories changed the outcome of three races. All three were decided by hundreds of votes, not thousands.