WISCONSIN RECOUNT AFFIRMS BIDEN WIN
Trump campaign requested, paid for process that added 87 votes to his rival’s total
WASHINGTON
The recount of presidential ballots in Wisconsin’s two largest counties reconfirmed Sunday that Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the key swing state by more than 20,000 votes, the latest example of the president’s f lailing efforts to undo the election results.
The completion of the recount — which the Trump campaign had requested — added to a pileup of defeats for the president as he continues to attack Biden’s national victory, claiming that widespread fraud tainted the results.
His campaign has vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, though it has yet to do so.
After the completion of the recount in Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County on Friday and Dane County on Sunday, there was little change in
the final breakdown of the more than 800,000 ballots that had been cast in the two jurisdictions. In the end, Biden’s lead over Trump in the state grew by 87 votes.
Under Wisconsin law, Trump was required to foot the bill — meaning his campaign paid $3 million, only to see Biden widen his margin.
With the recount concluded, the president is rapidly running out of opportunities to try to slow Biden’s march to the presidency.
Four of the six states where Trump has questioned the results have certified their vote tallies. His efforts to stop Michigan officials from finalizing the vote there this month ran aground. A hand recount of ballots in Georgia confirmed Biden’s win in that state. A second recount there is expected to conclude Wednesday, and Georgia election officials do not expect it to significantly change Biden’s approximately 12,000-vote margin.
Meanwhile, two new court decisions in Pennsylvania late last week rejected the Trump campaign’s attempts to halt the vote count in that state, the latest in a series of forceful judicial opinions that have tossed out claims by the president and his allies across the country.
The last key vote certifications could come today, when Arizona is set to finalize its results, along with Wisconsin, which announced Sunday that it would complete its state canvass then. The Electoral College will meet on Dec. 14 to formalize Biden’s victory.
Republicans, including the three who sit on Wisconsin’s six-member election commission, may attempt to delay certification.
However, under state law, the chair of the commission — currently a Democrat — has the authority to finalize the results.
The president and his legal advisers have said they still plan to fight in court in an attempt to prevent Wisconsin from moving forward.
“The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday,” Trump tweeted Saturday. “We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!”
Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis claimed without evidence in a statement Sunday that the recounts had “revealed serious issues regarding the legality of ballots cast.”
“As we have said from the very beginning, we want every legal vote, and only legal votes to be counted, and we will continue to uphold our promise to the American people to fight for a free and fair election,” she said.
Danielle Melfi, the Wisconsin director of the Biden campaign, said in a statement that local boards of canvassers had “resoundingly rejected — often on a bipartisan basis — the Trump campaign’s baseless attempts to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who simply followed the law when they voted. And despite repeated incendiary accusations, there was no evidence of fraud whatsoever.”
Under Wisconsin law, Trump was allowed to request the recount because Biden’s margin of victory — about 0.6 percent — was less than 1 percent.
However, Trump’s campaign was required to pay for the recount because Biden’s margin was more than 0.25 percent. Trump could have requested a full statewide recount, at a cost of nearly $8 million.
Instead, his campaign opted to pay less for a narrower recount in the state’s two most Democratic-leaning counties.