World News
Wisconsin Vote Re-Count Proves No Irregularities and Trump the Winner
Trump, who had previously derided recount efforts as “a waste of time,” took to Twitter after the new Wisconsin tally was announced
.
.
WISCONSIN – The Elections commission in the US State of Wisconsin have verified that President-elect Donald Trump was the certified winner of the Wisconsin presidential race on Monday after a statewide recount failed to produce any evidence of widespread irregularities or miscounted ballots.
The recount, requested and paid for by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, produced a net gain of 131 votes for Mr. Trump out of nearly 3 million cast in the state.
It also ended any lingering uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential race, giving Mr. Trump a clear victory over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that the Electoral College is expected to affirm when it convenes next week.
President-elect Trump won the Midwestern state by more than 22,000 votes in November, a margin that increased by 131 votes following the recount, according to preliminary statewide totals announced by Wisconsin’s election commission.
Trump, who had previously derided recount efforts as “a waste of time,” took to Twitter after the new Wisconsin tally was announced.
“The final Wisconsin vote is in and guess what — we just picked up an additional 131 votes,” the real estate tycoon wrote. “The Dems and Green Party can now rest. “Scam!”
Wisconsin — a swing state that had voted Democratic in the past several presidential elections prior to 2016 — started recounting its ballots on December 1 to meet the Tuesday deadline for certifying the vote.
The Wisconsin recount “was never about changing the outcome; it was about validating the vote and restoring confidence in our voting system to Americans across the country who have doubt,” Stein said in a statement.
Ms. Stein raised more than $7 million from grass-roots donors for recounts across three states after a prominent computer scientist outlined a theoretical way that voting machines could have been hacked in critical swing states. Citing the discrepancy between pre-election polls and the outcome in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, a group of election law experts and computer scientists urged for a full recount in the three states.
Michigan began a recount of ballots last week before a series of legal rulings against Ms. Stein shut the recount down last week. The state’s supreme court affirmed the ruling on Friday, leaving Ms. Stein with few legal options to continue to pursue her recount effort.
In Pennsylvania, Ms. Stein’s campaign failed to meet the requirements to force a statewide recount, forcing her attorneys to file a last-ditch lawsuit in federal court.
A federal judge ruled against Ms. Stein in the lawsuit on Monday. U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond issued an opinion that said the “suspicion of a ’hacked’ Pennsylvania election borders on the irrational.”
By Byron Tau | Petchanet Pratruangkrai
