WASHINGTON: One of the three major US states that helped president-elect Donald Trump win, Wisconsin will undergo recounting of votes after it received two petitions from a third-party candidate who alleged Russian hackers of infiltrating voting systems.
A request to recount the votes was filed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein who also raised more than $5.2 million for the process. The move came as Hillary Clinton's campaign pushed its efforts for recount in several key states, joining Stein. Marc Elias, the campaign counsel, however, said its own probe hasn't uncovered any evidence of hacking. Stein said the reliability of voting machines needs to be "investigated". "Election integrity experts have independently identified Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as states where statistical anomalies" raised concerns, she said.
The Wisconsin elections commission plans to complete the process by December 10. Parallely, Trump has named Kathleen Troia McFarland as deputy security adviser and Donald McGahn as White House counsel. Reacting to the recount in true Trump style, the billionaire cooked up a Twitter storm with a series of tweets mostly bashing Clinton. Quoting the Democrat leader, he said, "Trump is going to be our President. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead." So much time and money will be spent - same result! Sad" Another tweet that reaffirmed Trump's stance read, "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."
And he obviously pointed out the "fraud" that helped Clinton win her states including Virginia, New Hampshire, and California. "Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!"
More than half a dozen academics, other specialists, and now election security experts have joined Stein's campaign to review the presidential vote in battleground states won by Trump, even as she sues Winconsin to secure a full recount by hand of all of its 3m ballots. New testimony was submitted supporting a lawsuit from Stein against Wisconsin authorities in which she has asked a court to prevent county officials from carrying out their recounts by machine. She had argued that the plan to allow automatic recounting "risks tainting the recount process" because the electronic scanning equipment involved may incorrectly tally the results and could have been attacked by foreign hackers.
