Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s campaign says it plans to seek a recount of the votes cast earlier this month in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission says it has received notice from an attorney with the campaign that they plan to file a petition with the state before a Friday deadline. The commission would then calculate the cost of conducting the recount, which the campaign would have to cover because the margin between her and Republican president-elect Donald Trump is too large to have it covered by the state.
Stein received about 1.1 percent of the vote in Wisconsin, compared to 47.9 percent for Trump.
The campaign said it wants a recount after seeing evidence of voting anomalies, which include a New York magazine report citing a seven percent drop in votes for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in counties that used electronic voting. Clinton lost Wisconsin to Trump by about 27,000 votes.
In a statement, Stein said “after a divisive and painful presidential race, in which foreign agents hacked into party databases, private email servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable. That’s why the unexpected results of the election and reported anomalies need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified. We deserve elections we can trust.”
Elections Commission administrator Michael Haas said the agency is aware of those reports, but cautioned there could be many reasons for the drop in votes. “It could have nothing to do with the equipment,” he says. “It could be the makeup of the counties.”
The last time a statewide recount was done was following the 2011 state Supreme Court race. Haas said clerks estimated that recount cost over a half million dollars, although the vote total in that election was almost half that of this year’s presidential race. He expects it could be a few days before a cost estimate is ready, due in part to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Messages seeking comment from Clinton’s and president-elect Donald Trump’s campaigns were not immediately returned.