The presidential election is not over yet.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein used crowdfunding to raise millions of dollars in order to fund election recounts in key battleground states. Today, Wisconsin’s election board agreed to a statewide recount of the results of the presidential election.
The deadline to complete the recount is December 13 and will involve a hand reexamination of almost 3 million ballots. Workers will most likely need to work late evenings and weekends in order to meet the deadline.
Although this could give some hope to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it is unlikely that a recount will change the election results. President-elect Donald Trump won the state by just over 27,000 votes. Even on the slim chance that Wisconsin shifts, Stein will also need recounts in two other key states to change their electoral votes as well.
Trump won the state of Pennsylvania by just over 70,000 votes and Michigan by almost 11,000 votes. Stein is calling for recounts in those states as well.
Stein has a few reasons for calling for the recount. The Russian-led hacking and release of Democratic Party emails, the vulnerability of the voting systems in the three challenged states, fear of possible vote rigging, and the discrepancy between polls and the actual election results are the main issues she is citing.
The gathering of the Electoral College to name the next president is on December 19. With all three of these states recounting votes, the results of the November 8 election will be contested right until the end. Even if the recounts do not change the state results, there are also calls for “faithless electors” to file their vote for someone other than Trump, due to character and transparency issues.
The Clinton campaign has announced that they are backing Stein’s efforts. The ironic story in all these allegations of tampering and voter fraud is that they mostly stem from Trump and his supporters. Trump spent months complaining about fraud and vote rigging prior to his surprising victory.
Watch Stein discuss why she is calling for state recounts below:
Featured Image via YouTube Screenshot
