Jill Stein a Green Party candidate raised enough money to obtain recounts of votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and now Wisconsin. And Hillary Clinton is joining in on the request too.
Election officials announced the recount will probably begin Thursday. Federal law says election disputes must be resolved within 35 days of election day, so officials have a little less than two weeks to finish counting the votes.
One Wisconsin Institute Executive Director, Scot Ross, said in a statement, “Every voter’s vote deserved to be counted, which is why we have been fighting so hard against Republican-backed restrictions that make it harder and more complicated for eligible voters to cast their ballot.”
One Wisconsin Institute is a non-partisan, progressive research and education organization.
Officials from the Stein campaign have made concerns about Russian hackers, but there hasn’t been any evidence of voter fraud.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
As Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out via Twitter at Hillary Clinton over her campaign’s decision to join the recount process in Wisconsin, state elections officials announced a recount will probably start Thursday.
At a meeting Monday morning, Wisconsin Elections Commission staff will request the commission approve a timeline that will start the recount in all 72 counties on Thursday. Under federal law, any presidential election disputes must be resolved within 35 days of election day, which is Dec. 13.
While spending the Thanksgiving holiday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets criticizing the recount in Wisconsin and claimed that millions voted illegally, though there is no evidence of that happening.
The Clinton campaign announced Saturday it would participate in the Wisconsin recount sought by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and may join Stein-backed efforts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Officials cited voter concerns about Russian hacking and other forms of alleged voting problems.
While Clinton officials said they have seen no evidence of vote tampering, and do not expect the results in any state to change, they believe their campaign needs to be represented during any recount process.
The president-elect’s comments about the recount capped a series of tweets in which he quoted Clinton’s criticism of a Trump debate comment that he might not recognize the results of the election should he lose. At one point, Trump noted, Clinton described refusal to accept the results of an election as “a direct threat to our democracy.”
For more on this story, visit Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
