Donald Trump Describes Wisconsin Vote Recount as Scam
Donald Trump has described the Wisconsin vote recount as a “scam”.
The president-elect, who narrowly won Wisconsin, said the results “should be respected instead of being challenged or abused”.
Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein had initiated the recount. She also wants recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania, citing “statistical anomalies”.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has said it would participate in Wisconsin’s recount.
Results would need to be overturned in all three states to alter the outcome of the November 8 presidential election.
In a statement released by his transition team on November 26, Donald Trump accused Jill Stein of trying to “fill her coffers with money” on the pretext of asking for donations towards a recount.
Photo AP
“The people have spoken and the election is over,” the statement said.
Jill Stein defended her recount initiative, telling CNN that “the point to drive home here is that having a secure elections process benefits us all”.
The Green Party’s candidate also suggested that she was open to looking at recounts in other states – not just Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton campaign’s general counsel, Marc Elias, said the camp and outside experts had been “conducting an extensive review of election results, searching for any signs that the voting process had been tampered with”.
Marc Elias said there was no evidence to conclude the election had been sabotaged, but “we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported”.
He noted that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of the three states – Michigan – “well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount”.
However, Marc Elias said the campaign would join in “on principle” in the Midwestern states if Dr Stein followed through on her promise.
Jill Stein reportedly wants to be sure computer hackers did not skew the poll in favor of Donald Trump.
Concerns over possible Russian interference had been expressed in the run-up to the vote.
The US government has said Russian state actors were behind hacks on the Democratic National Committee, a claim denied by Moscow.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission said it had received recount petitions, and the process would begin after Jill Stein’s campaign had paid the fee, which the commission was still calculating.
Jill Stein’s campaign needs to raise millions of dollars to cover the fees for the vote recount in all three states.
Her website says nearly $6 million has already been raised toward a $7 million target. It says this is enough to fund the recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The deadline for the petition for the recount in Wisconsin was November 25, while Pennsylvania’s deadline is November 28, and Michigan’s is November 30.
Michigan is yet to declare its final results.
Wisconsin provides only 10 electoral votes in the crucial Electoral College that gave Donald Trump victory in the November 8 election.
Wins there for Hillary Clinton, as well as in Michigan (16 electoral votes) and Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), would have clinched the presidency for the Democrat.