Elections officials in two Wisconsin counties are continuing their work to re-tally ballots cast in the November presidential contest as they near the Dec. 1 deadline to complete the recount. The long-shot push to flip the state for President Donald Trump, which is surely headed to the courts after the recount ends, has sought to invalidate thousands of absentee ballots from voters who had followed guidance provided to them by their local clerks and others. The process kicked-off in the state’s two biggest and bluest counties, Dane and Milwaukee, on Friday, though it took a while for the counting to officially begin. As of Monday morning, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said nearly one-quarter of ballots cast have been tabulated by the start of the fourth day of the recount requested and paid for by Trump’s campaign. “We are slightly behind schedule but catching up,” he wrote on Twitter, noting 55 of the 253 reporting units have been completed thus far. “So grateful for all who are pitching in for democracy.” This week will include the Madison portion of the recount, where voters’ ballots in the city make up just under half of Dane’s total votes (according to the recent canvassed results from the state’s counties) and are spread across more than 150 reporting units. The clerk’s office will be closed this week as officials prepare to answer questions for the three-member Board of Canvassers, which is controlled 2-1 by Democrats.
Pennsylvania counties start to certify election results, despite disinformation and baseless fraud claims from Trump allies | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer
Pennsylvania counties rushed Monday to certify their results from the Nov. 3 election, even as President Donald Trump and his Republican allies continued their increasingly long-shot legal effort to disrupt the cementing of the state’s final vote tally. But as county boards of elections convened for what is normally little more than a sleepy formality, the impact of the president’s campaign to undermine trust in the integrity of the vote repeatedly reared its head.In at least three of the state’s most populous counties, the boards split their votes along party lines. And small groups of voters speaking at public meetings urged elections administrators to reject vote tallies in several others. Many speakers cited unsupported allegations of widespread fraud, malfunctioning voting machines and claims about mail-in ballots that Trump and his supporters have spread without evidence in recent weeks. Joe Gale, the Republican vice chair of the Montgomery County Election Board and only member to vote against certification, decried the widespread use of mail voting and called for the U.S. Supreme Court to review of the state’s results, echoing requests made by the president’s lawyers in recent days. “There is no way to certify the authenticity of one half of the votes cast this year,” he said Monday. “All 67 counties across the Commonwealth are experiencing electoral uncertainty.” Board votes in Allegheny and Luzerne — which Trump carried by 14 points — also split along partisan divides. But in all three counties, the dissenters were among the minority and the certifications were ultimately approved.
Full Article: Pennsylvania counties start to certify election results, despite disinformation and baseless fraud claims from Trump allies