Washington – Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign will take part in a recount of Wisconsin votes in the U.S. presidential race, an effort Republican winner Donald Trump called “ridiculous” on Saturday.
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Wisconsin’s election board on Friday approved the recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. She has said she wants to guarantee the integrity of the U.S. voting system since computer hacking had marked the Nov. 8 election.
Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign counsel, said the campaign would take part in the recount in Wisconsin as well as in the other battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan if recounts were mounted there.
Elias said in a statement on the Medium website that the Clinton campaign had not planned to seek a recount since its own investigation had failed to turn up any sign of hacking of voting systems.
“But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Elias said.
Clinton’s campaign should be legally represented in Wisconsin to be able to monitor the recount, he said.
In a statement, Trump said the three states had been won by wide margins, including by more than 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania. The recount is a “scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded,” he said.
The $7 million Stein has sought to raise for the recounts is a way “to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” he said.
Although Trump won the Electoral College tally, Clinton will have won the national popular vote by more than 2 million ballots when the final results are in.
Stein has raised $5.8 million of the $7 million needed to cover fees and legal costs for the three recounts, according to her campaign website. The deadline for filing a recount bid in Pennsylvania is Monday.
The voting margins make it highly unlikely any recounts would end up giving Clinton a win in all three states, which would be needed for the overall election result to change.
Trump beat Clinton in Pennsylvania by 70,010 votes, in Michigan by 10,704 votes and in Wisconsin by 27,257 votes.
Experts urged extra scrutiny of the three states, Stein told CNN on Friday, because their voting systems were seen as vulnerable.
This is despicable how do they let someone who lost the state by millions of votes contest the results? We all know this is coming from Hillary and her side kick Soros. This should not be allowed, another way for the corrupt Clintons to try and steal the election. Amazing how low they will stoop.
Waste of time and money; Trump is the winner. Period.
Such sore losers. Such Hypocrisy. Didn’t work with Al Gore; won’t work here.
If the Clinton campaign wants to participate in this money-wasting farce after conceding the election, then I have no problem with President-elect Trump changing his mind and deciding to prosecute Clinton for her crimes.
I think Trump now will change his mind about prosecuting Hillary.
what a WASTE OF MONEY. Another ILLEGAL step by the Crooked Clintons.
and the President doesn’t even comment on this or all the demonstarations
What embarrassing hypocrites these libtards are! They didn’t stop bashing PE Trump after he didn’t answer during the debate that he’d accept the election results if he felt they were rigged…yet here we are and the shoe is on the other foot and these low lives do exactly what they asked Mr. trump to promise he wouldn’t do!!! Sick sick sick. Anyone who voted for lying Hilary, biggest criminal to ever run for president, ought to have their head examined! Watch and see the protests and roots after the recounts show she lost too! They’ll be more crazy than the first time!
Hillary a liar and crook. She has no chance of winning
Trump won PA by over 70,000!
And tell crooked Hillary to recount NV and NH!
let Soros spend millions. a lot of folks are gonna have jobs
Yeah and recount Florida but call me to do the count. I want a slice of that money…i mean pie. Or better yet I should start a go fund me page asking for one.
Stein is a hypocrite, her whole agenda was to take votes from Clinton, which she did quite successfully