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US President Donald Trump requested a recount of Wisconsin’s two most Democratic counties, paying the required cost of US $ 3 million (NZ $ 4.32 million) and claiming they were the sites of the “worst irregularities. “although no evidence of illegal activity has been presented. .
Counts in Milwaukee and Dane counties could begin as early as Thursday (Friday NZT) and must be completed by December 1.
Democrat Joe Biden received 577,455 votes in those two counties compared to 213,157 for Trump.
Biden won statewide by 20,608 votes, according to poll results submitted by counties.
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“The official poll results reaffirmed Joe Biden’s clear and resounding victory in Wisconsin after Wisconsin voters cast their votes in record numbers,” said Biden campaign spokesman Nate Evans.
“A careful and selective count of Milwaukee and Dane County will not change these results.”
Milwaukee County is the largest county in the state, home to the city of Milwaukee, and blacks make up about 27 percent of the population, more than any other county. Dane County is home to the liberal capital of Madison and the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin.
Morry Gash / AP
Workers count Milwaukee County ballots on Election Day at the Milwaukee Central Count.
“The people of Wisconsin deserve to know if their electoral processes ran in a legal and transparent manner,” said Wisconsin attorney Jim Troupis, who is working with the Trump campaign.
“Unfortunately, the integrity of the election results cannot be trusted without a recount in these two counties and the uniform application of Wisconsin’s absentee voting requirements. We will not know the true results of the elections until only the legal votes cast are counted. “
Dean Knudson, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said Trump raised “important legal issues that have never been resolved in Wisconsin.”
But another commission member, Democrat Mark Thomsen, said Trump was trying to change the election rules after losing, but only in two counties.
“That’s like losing the Super Bowl and then saying, ‘I want a review of a certain play using different rules than the rest of the game,'” Thomsen said.
“That is the essence of hypocrisy, deception and dishonesty.”
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat, rejected the Trump campaign’s claim that there were problems in the two counties.
“This is an attack on cities, on minorities, on places that have historically voted for the Democrats,” Barrett said. “Don’t let anyone fool you by saying it is about wrongdoing.”
The Trump campaign said the secretaries mistakenly added missing information to the returned absentee ballots.
Morry Gash / AP
Supporter of President Donald Trump. Trump will have to pay $ 7.9 million if he wants a statewide recount of the unofficial results that show he lost Wisconsin to Biden by about 20,500 votes.
But the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s guidance, in effect since 2016, says clerks can fix missing witness address components in the envelopes containing absentee ballots if they have reliable information.
That guide, approved unanimously by the bipartisan electoral commission, has been in effect for 11 state elections without objection.
The electoral commission said there were no corrections to the actual absentee ballots contained within the envelopes, as some have claimed. The witness’s signature and address information are on the envelope in which the ballot is mailed.
The Trump campaign also alleges that voters circumvented Wisconsin’s photo identification requirement by stating that they were indefinitely confined and therefore did not have to present photo identification to return their absentee ballot.
Wisconsin law requires all voters to show acceptable photo identification to vote both in person and by mail. Provides exceptions for citizens who are indefinitely confined due to age, physical illness, or disease or who are disabled for an indefinite period.
The Wisconsin Republican Party sued Dane County Clerk, Democrat Scott McDonell, for advice he had posted on his Facebook page.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered McDonell to stop issuing guidelines that differ from the official language approved by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The Trump campaign also alleges that local election clerks issued absentee ballots to voters without requiring a request, in violation of state law. No evidence of irregularities related to the absentee ballot requests has been presented.
Republicans had raised concerns about events that took place over two weekends in Madison parks where poll workers accepted completed absentee ballots from the people. But in that event no ballots were distributed, only those previously requested were accepted and no challenges were filed.
Election commission members Knudson and Thomsen said they did not know what Trump was referring to in that complaint.
“This was news to me that has been happening,” said Knudson, a Republican.
Thomsen, a Democratic member, said the statement “was not true.”
“Everybody knows that you can’t get an absentee ballot unless you ask for one,” Thomsen said.
The goal is to begin the count in Dane County, at a Madison convention center, on Friday and broadcast it live, McDonell said.
The count will take place 16 hours a day and will likely take the allotted 13 days to complete. Milwaukee County officials planned an update to their plans for later Wednesday (local time).
“We know the result will be the same as before,” McDonell said. “It’s what we saw across the state four years ago and this election, from my perspective, went smoothly.”
Historically, tallies in Wisconsin and across the country have resulted in very little vote change. A 2016 presidential recount in Wisconsin gave Trump an additional 131 votes.
Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes that year and opposed the recount put forward by Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
“The people have spoken and the election is over,” Trump said at the time. “We must accept this result and then look to the future.”
In Wisconsin, two pro-Trump groups along with a Wisconsin voter went to federal court to try to stop the 2016 count, arguing in a filing that a Wisconsin count that could “cast unjustifiable doubts about the legitimacy of the president’s victory elected Donald J. Trump. “
A judge did not rule on the merits of the case, but he also did not stop the recount, noting that he had little chance of changing the outcome.
“Wisconsin’s final vote is out now and guess what, we just got an additional 131 votes,” Trump tweeted at the time after the recount was taken. “The Democrats and the Green Party can now rest. Fraud!”
