The Wisconsin presidential election ballot recount is winding down.
With a completion deadline of December 12, most counties are finished recounting their ballots.
According to the Wisconsin Election Commission’s spreadsheet, with the exception of Milwaukee, which counts its absentee ballots differently, most other counties have completed their recounts:
Heavy has the overview:
Hillary Clinton has only reduced Donald Trump’s lead by several dozen votes in the days of recounting, nowhere near enough to alter the election. Trump won Wisconsin by more than 22,000 votes. Green Party nominee Jill Stein paid at least $3.5 million in donated money for the recount.The latest spreadsheet released December 11 shows that the City of Milwaukee’s totals still have not been fully updated to include absentee ballots, even though the Milwaukee County Clerk told the news media the recount was completed on Thursday, December 8, and only minor changes were found. That leaves Milwaukee as pretty much the last lingering mystery before Wisconsin can shut the lid on the 2016 presidential recount.
The county specific breakdowns are here:
The December 11 spreadsheet shows that, in addition to the City of Milwaukee, only these precincts have not yet been reported to the state:Clark County – ward 8 in the City of Stanley. (But this ward only listed 2 votes during the original count, one for Trump and one for Clinton).Dane County – 5 wards in the City of Verona. (Trump received 371 and 563 votes in the first precinct and Clinton received 801 and 1,455 votes.) Dane County told local news stations that it had completed its recount, and the Election Commission retweeted one of those accounts. However, these wards are still not listed in the day 11 spreadsheet.Milwaukee County – wards 3-9 in the City of Glendale. (Trump received 429 votes and Clinton received 852 in these wards in the original count).City of Milwaukee – still not updated with absentee ballots, according to the Election Commission. The returns appear in the spreadsheet but they still show deficits because they are not complete.Monroe County – City of Sparta and City of Tomah wards. (In City of Sparta wards 7-12, Trump had 700 votes and Clinton had 616 in the original count. In City of Tomah wards 1-6, Trump had 627 votes and Clinton had 465. In City of Tomah Wards 7-11, Trump had 759 votes and Clinton had 517. In City of Tomah wards 12-16, 18, Trump had 691 votes and Clinton had 507 in the original count.)Portage County – Town of Carson. (Trump had 493 and Clinton had 292 votes in the original count.)Racine County – City of Racine ward 36 (Trump had 164 votes and Clinton had 415 in the original vote count.)Dane County completed its recounted returns late on Saturday evening, said WKOW-TV. WKOW-TV said only a few changes occurred in Dane, with Clinton gaining 172 votes.
New York offers advice on how to conduct a recount:
But as a general rule, there shouldn’t be any harm in looking to see, and here New York can offer the country lessons.Lesson 1: Use paper ballots, fed through scanning machines, for all elections, unlike the paperless ATM-style systems in much of Pennsylvania and areas of Wisconsin. A paper trail is critical when results are called into question.Lesson 2: Program all scanning machines to retain a photographic image of every paper ballot, then make the images freely available to anyone who wants to see them. Ideally, the images would be posted on the Internet — showing the ballot and how the machine counted the vote. This way, a harmed candidate can use the evidence to seek court intervention and, if warranted, a hand count of the paper ballots themselves.Lesson 3: Set a fixed standard for an automatic hand count. In the city, when a race is 0.5% apart or closer, it kicks in. That need not be the magic number for the whole country, but every state should choose its own.Main thing: Elections are where voters choose their leaders. Let them shine a light on their handiwork.
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