Second Wisconsin recount official blames “modems” for counting more votes than voters

| 1:14 pm EST December 3, 2016
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Three days into the Wisconsin statewide recount, and reports are now pouring in from designated election recount observers. Those observers who have volunteered to represent third party candidate Jill Stein during the recounts have begun documenting their stories on her official campaign website. Some of them have reported that they’ve observed no hijinks at all. But one observer reported vote counting machines that have been visibly tampered with, while another observer reports that several wards had more votes than voters – and the excuse provided by officials is bizarre.

Isa-Lee Wolf, acting as a designated recount observer on behalf of Jill Stein, observed the first day of the recount process in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. Wolf points to two wards within the county where the total number of votes in the original count exceeded the total number of voters in those wards. In particular, Wolf has documented on Stein’s campaign site and then here as to the findings: Ward 2 had 344 voters and 346 Votes while Ward 18 and 473 actual voters and 476 votes. This would mean greater than 100% voter turnout in those wards, which is impossible.

The recount observer reports that “It was explained these numbers are reported ‘by modem.’ The modem is integrated into the counting machine. A tape is also generated prior to transmission.” In other words, Wisconsin election officials are blaming a modem for somehow crediting more votes than were actually cast. Notably, this is not the first instance in which the state’s officials have blamed “modems” for vote totals that were literally impossible.

One week ago Palmer Report was the first to report that after one individual contacted the Wisconsin Ethics Commission to inquire as to why Donald Trump’s statewide vote total had been initially overinflated by thousands of votes and subsequently had to be revised, Public Information Officer Reid Magney and blamed the problem on a “modem not working correctly.” Are the Wisconsin machines truly having widespread “modem” problems, or has this merely become the standard fallback to explain literally impossible voting totals in various precincts and districts?