Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign will join a recount of the general election results in Wisconsin, officials announced Saturday.
The moves
Some liberal activists have alleged polling machines were hacked after purported discrepancies in some Wisconsin counties were uncovered last week. Election officials and experts have maintained that there is no evidence of foul play.
The Stein campaign has also indicated they will file for a recount in the key states of Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those states, combined with Wisconsin, helped lift Republican Donald Trump to victory over Clinton on Election Day.
Marc Erik Elias, the Clinton campaign’s general counsel, said in a post on Medium that the campaign was not going to ask for a recount in the Badger State but would support Stein’s efforts.
“Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves, but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Elias wrote.
Elias added that the campaign would take the same stance on recounts in other states.
Because Trump’s margin of victory was more than .25 percent, Stein will have to pay for the cost of conducting the recount. Her campaign has said they have raised more than $5.6 million to fund the effort, which could cost over $1 million in Wisconsin.
Michael Haas, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the recount would start late next week. Federal law requires all recounts to be completed within 35 days of the election and Haas said county commissioners will likely have to work overtime to meet that deadline.
