After budgeting just $1.1mm for the Wisconsin recount, Jill Stein got a bit of shock yesterday when the Wisconsin Election Commission gave her until 4:30pm today to deliver $3.5 million to fund an expedited recount effort in the state or walk away. Now, according to the Washington Post, Stein has just delivered the required sum which is roughly 54% of the $6.5mm she's raised to date.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has delivered $3.5 million to the state of Wisconsin to guarantee a recount of the presidential vote there.
Stein faced a 4:30 p.m. Central Time deadline to deliver the money so a recount could start Thursday. The Wisconsin Elections Commission says it got a wire transfer shortly before Tuesday’s deadline.
As a reminder, here is the official timeline for the recount per the Wisconsin Election Commission:
Tuesday, the Stein, De La Fuente or both must pay for the recount. Once full payment is received, the commission will issue a recount order to all presidential candidates.
Wednesday, commission staff will hold a teleconference in the morning for all county clerks and canvass members to outline the process and rules of a recount. Since a 24-hour public meeting notice is required for the recount, each county must post its notice by Wednesday.
Thursday, recount begins in every Wisconsin county.
Dec. 12, all county canvass boards must be completed by 8 p.m.
Dec. 13, Elections Commission staff will prepare the official recount canvass certification by 3 p.m.
Of course, all of this comes as Stein's attorneys spent the day in court trying to force a hand recount which the Wisconsin Election Commission rejected yesterday.
After missing the PA deadline yesterday, miscalculating the Wisconsin recount fee by just over 200% and facing a strong backlash from almost everyone, including those in her own party, we suspect Stein's 15-minutes of fame are nearing an end.
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As a reminder, here are all the particulars on Stein's recount petition.
It's official, the Wisconsin Election Commission just confirmed that a recount petition has been filed by Jill Stein just ahead of the 5pm deadline.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received recountpetitions from both the Stein and De La Fuente campaigns https://t.co/ksJ7dP35zm
— Wisconsin Elections (@WI_Elections) November 25, 2016
Per a press release posted to the Commission's website, the recount will start late next week after the appropriate personnel have been assembled and after Stein pays the recount fee. While no expectations were given for a completion date, the Commission noted that the federal deadline for all recounts is December 13th.
“The Commission is preparing to move forward with a statewide recount of votes for President of the United States, as requested by these candidates,” Haas said.
“We have assembled an internal team to direct the recount, we have been in close consultation with our county clerk partners, and have arranged for legal representation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice,” Haas said. “We plan to hold a teleconference meeting for county clerks next week and anticipate the recount will begin late in the week after the Stein campaign has paid the recount fee, which we are still calculating.”
The last statewide recount was of the Supreme Court election in 2011. At that time, the Associated Press surveyed county clerks and reported that costs to the counties exceeded $520,000, though several counties did not respond to the AP’s survey. That election had 1.5 million votes, and Haas said the Commission expects the costs to be higher for an election with 2.975 million votes. “The Commission is in the process of obtaining cost estimates from county clerks so that we can calculate the fee which the campaigns will need to pay before the recount can start,” Haas said. The Commission will need to determine how the recount costs will be assessed to the campaigns.
The state is working under a federal deadline of December 13 to complete the recount. As a result, county boards of canvassers may need to work evenings and weekends to meet the deadlines. “The recount process is very detail-oriented, and this deadline will certainly challenge some counties to finish on time,” Haas said.
As a reminder, the official count shows a narrow 22,177 vote lead for Trump, or just 0.7% of the total 2,975,313 votes cast in the state.
While we haven't yet heard Trump's thoughts on the recount, Jill seems to be very enthusiastic.
BREAKING: We've filed in Wisconsin! #Recount2016 will begin next week. Volunteer to help: https://t.co/Bvrs0iP3lv https://t.co/B7tS87ggpI
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) November 25, 2016
Finally, below is Stein's official petition filed with the Wisconsin Election Commission which includes all of her "evidence" of Russian election tampering from extremely credible and impartial sources like The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and NBC News.
Among other things, Stein's petition cites the hacking of Arizona and Colorado voter registration databases, hacking of the DNC and John Podesta's emails and high levels of absentee voters as the justifications for her recount request.
In August 2016, it was widely reported that foreign operators breached voter registration databases in at least two states and stole hundreds of thousands of voter records.
Around that time, hacker infiltrated the e-mail systems of the Democratic National Committee and a campaign official for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. These e-mails were then published online.
On October 7, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security issued a joint statement regarding these breaches. The statement reads, in pertinent part, as follows: "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USCI) is confident" that there have been "recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." It also states that "[t]here thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process" and that "similar tactics and techniques [have been used] across Europe and Eurasia...to influence public opinion there." In the statement, DHS urges state election officials "to be vigilant and seek cybersecurity assistance" from that agency in preparation for the presidential election.
In Wisconsin, there is evidence of voting irregularities in the 2016 presidential election that indicate potential tampering with electronic voting systems. Specifically, there was a significant increase in the number of absentee voters as compared to the last general election. This significant increase could be attributed to a breach of the state's electronic voter database.
The well-documented and conclusive evidence of foreign interference in the presidential race before the election, along with the irregularities observed in Wisconsin, call into question the results and indicate the possibility that a widespread breach occurred.
Of course, while Stein reiterates numerous allegations of foreign hacking that were well circulated, yet never officially linked to a specific source, before the election, her petition doesn't offer a single shred of actual, tangible evidence that the election results in Wisconsin were in anyway tampered with.
Even her so-called "computer science expert" offers up nothing more than baseless theories on "plausible" explanations of how the Wisconsin results may have been hacked. Sure, because it's just so impossible to believe that a flawed candidate with multiple ongoing FBI criminal investigations may have simply lost the election.
Perhaps Hillary could give us her opinion on whether or not questioning election results by throwing around wild accusations of vote tampering by rogue foreign states qualifies as a "direct threat to our democracy." Certainly, she had very strong feelings about Trump refusing to blindly accept the election results during the last debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_jTK9cWdI
Full recount petition as filed by Jill Stein:
http://www.scribd.com/embeds/332302650/content