Wisconsin says it’s preparing for a recount; narrow margin for Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump

| 6:27 pm EST November 23, 2016
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Less than one day after third party presidential candidate Jill Stein launched a crowdsourced effort to force a recount in Wisconsin, where Donald Trump’s margin of victory over Hillary Clinton was razor thin, the state’s Elections Commission director now says he’s preparing for a recount. Stein began raising money on Wednesday to force recounts in three close swing states, and has already received enough in donations to cover the cost of the Wisconsin recount ahead of the deadline.

Jill Stein’s donation page says it’s already received more than $1.4 million as of 9pm eastern time on Wednesday. According to a new article in the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper, the Stein campaign believes it needs just $1.1 million to cover the cost of a Wisconsin recount, a total that it’s already surpassed. That same Madison-based newspaper reports that “Elections Commission director Michael Haas said Wednesday that the commission is preparing for a recount.” In other words, with a margin of only around 20,000 votes, the recount in Wisconsin is a go. But two other states are still in question and must still be funded.

The Stein effort estimates that the total cost of funding the recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (which each must be paid for by the campaign requesting the recount) will be around $2.5 million. That means she’ll need to raise at least another million dollars before the upcoming recount deadlines in Michigan and Pennsylvania. But, according to the above named election official in charge in Wisconsin, that state is already making preparations for a recount based on Stein’s effort.