An Arizona elections official at the Maricopa inserts ballots into a machine to recount the votes in the 5th Congressional District race Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein on Monday told the Wisconsin Elections Commission that she would sue unless the state conducted its recount by hand.
Unless she wins the case in Dane County Circuit Court, officials in all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties could decide whether they want to count election ballots manually or by machine, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Either way, Wisconsin is set to verify its results from November 8, when President-elect Donald Trump won the state with 47.9 percent to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s 46.9 percent.
State officials said they expect the recount to uphold Trump’s win—but Stein’s efforts have highlighted widespread voter outrage at the election results. The Green Party candidate initiated the recount process last week after handily raising more than $6.3 million to fund the effort.
Clinton’s campaign also indicated over the weekend that it would join in the recount process in Wisconsin, as well as any potential recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, key battleground states where Clinton lost.
Stein filed a lawsuit Monday to force a recount in Pennsylvania and said she plans to request one in Michigan on Wednesday. Although Michigan officially certified its results on Monday, a recount may still take place there.
“We must recount the votes so we can build trust in our election system,” Stein said in a statement. “We need to verify the vote in this and every election so that Americans of all parties can be sure we have a fair, secure, and accurate voting system.”
Wisconsin’s commission officials are expected on Monday to tell Stein and Independent candidate Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, who is also funding the recount effort, the estimated cost of the statewide recount campaign. On Tuesday, Stein or De La Fuente, or both, must pay in full, which will trigger a “recount order” to all candidates.
On Wednesday, the commission staff will explain the process to all county clerks and canvass members taking part in the recount.
On Thursday, the recount will begin, and all counties will have until December 12 to complete their part.
The election commission will prepare the recount canvass on December 13.
To win the Electoral College votes, Clinton would have to win all three states. Although election officials are skeptical this will happen, the Clinton team’s general counsel Marc Elias wrote in a post on Medium that “regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.”
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