The Wisconsin Elections Commission says it has received a petition from Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein to perform a recount of the vote in the state.
Wisconsin was narrowly won by President-elect Donald Trump on his way to victory in the electoral college on 8 November.
Dr Stein has also pledged to file vote recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s deadline is Monday, and Michigan’s is Wednesday.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received recount
petitions from both the Stein and De La Fuente campaigns https://t.co/ksJ7dP35zm— Wisconsin Elections (@WI_Elections) November 25, 2016
BREAKING: We've filed in Wisconsin! #Recount2016 will begin next week. Volunteer to help: https://t.co/Bvrs0iP3lv https://t.co/B7tS87ggpI
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) November 25, 2016
‘The Commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for President of the United States, as requested by these candidates,’ the agency’s administrator Michael Haas said in a statement.
‘We have assembled an internal team to direct the recount, we have been in close consultation with our county clerk partners, and have arranged for legal representation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
‘We plan to hold a teleconference meeting for county clerks next week and anticipate the recount will begin late in the week after the Stein campaign has paid the recount fee, which we are still calculating.’
Dr Stein has raised more than $4.7m from a grassroots crowdfunding effort to pay for a manual recount of ballots in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan amid claims from computer experts and electoral lawyers that the vote totals in those states could have been manipulated.
The three states (WI, MI, and PA) all voted narrowly in favour of Trump in the election, the margin being as little as 0.3% in Michigan, and for Clinton to overturn the results, she would need to secure the votes of all three disputed states.
This being said, certain cybersecurity firms have stressed that while the chances of election results being tampered with are slim, a recount would be the best way to ensure that the results are valid. In fact, Dr Stein has even stated “we do not have evidence of fraud. We do not have smoking guns. What we do have is an election that was surrounded by hacking”.
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