WISCONSIN — (CNN) Wisconsin election officials pledged Monday they would oversee a fast and fair recount of the presidential vote there, as they race to beat a federal deadline for getting it done, but they declined a request to conduct the new tally by hand.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission signed off on a breakneck pace that would have local officials coordinating the recount with them this week and starting the actual recount near the end of the week.
State officials must have their new tally completed by December 13, according to federal law.
Citing those speed concerns, the panel shot down a request from former Green Party candidate Jill Stein that the ballots be counted by hand.
“If nothing else, this is going to give us a very good audit, it’s going to re-assure Wisconsin voters that we have a fair system, that we’re not counting illegal votes,” said Elections Commission chairman Mark Thomsen.
He strongly defended the vote count.
“To say we didn’t count them correctly the first time… that somehow illegal votes were counted… is really inappropriate,” Thomsen said. “I don’t think we’ll find in this that our fellow citizens counted these votes (in)accurately — going to reassure — not counting illegal votes … We’re not counting dead people’s votes.”
The fight in Wisconsin is now likely to move to smaller venues throughout Wisconsin now as lawyers for Stein, Democrat Hillary Clinton and the Republican Party prepare to argue just how the votes are counted here in the next two weeks.
While Stein and the Green Party have been leading the fight for a recount here, in Wisconsin, and in Pennsylvania and Michigan, the former campaign counsel for Hillary Clinton announced over the weekend they would participate in the recount. That, and allegations that hackers threw the election, has had President-elect Donald Trump blasting away at the effort — dubbing it a scam, and firing off his own allegations of voter fraud in states Clinton won.
It appears unlikely that the recount in Wisconsin could overturn the results of the election — Clinton lost Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes, according to the current tally. But the battle is likely to keep eyes trained on the narrow margins of victory Trump eked out just three weeks ago to win the White House.
The Wisconsin commissioners also determined the recount would likely cost $1 million — a number that Stein had easily surpassed as of Monday morning, with $6.3 million raised so far.
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