At least a million votes cast in Wisconsin have been recounted as of Dec. 4, and the results haven’t changed much.
In six Wisconsin counties, the tally shows that the margin between Republican President-elect Donald Trump and his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, remained unchanged, WITI-TV in Wisconsin reported. Trump won Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes.
“It is the reality of it, and again, you only have a limited timeframe to get this done,” Wendy Christensen, a clerk in Racine County, told the station. As of Sunday, workers were about halfway through the 97,000 ballots that were cast in the county, noting no significant change in the results.
In six counties, Trump lost a total of 20 votes, while Clinton lost a total of 20 votes, WITI reported.
Dec. 12 is the deadline for the statewide recount.
“It’s typical of a recount where you go through everything again. You find things where people have used a blue pen that the machine didn’t count on Election Day, so we’re hand-counting some of those,” Christensen said in elaborating on the effort.
In Racine County, there was an “increase of 13 votes for Clinton/Kaine, votes were not counted on Election Night due to non-standard pens used to mark ballots,” said the Wisconsin Elections Commission in a Dec. 4 update. It did not provide a full tally of the votes lost or gained for the candidates.
Adams, Crawford, Forest, Iron, Menominee, and Price counties have completed their recount efforts as of Monday, according to the New Richmond News. Several other Wisconsin counties are starting Monday after they initially adjourned last Friday. It added: “The [Elections] Commission is not able to provide a running statewide tally of how many votes each candidate is up or down.”
At the same time, officials have told the newspaper the recount is on schedule.
Trump won the state by 20,000 votes, meaning it’s very unlikely for the state to flip to Clinton.
Former Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who called for a recount in the state after raising millions of dollars via an online fundraiser, netted 27 extra votes. She said her intent is to ensure the accuracy of the election, suggesting—without evidence—that votes were vulnerable to hacking.
She’s also pushing for a recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
