The basement room was cleared of pens with blue or black ink, items that could mar paper ballots. Anyone wearing a coat was told to leave it in the hallway, in case something nefarious was hidden underneath. Water bottles, purses and keys were placed on the floor, leaving the large plastic tables smooth and uncluttered. And at 9 a.m., with the brisk rap of a county clerk’s wooden gavel, the first recount of the 2016 presidential election was underway in Wisconsin, with another recount pending in the neighboring battleground state of Michigan. For the next 12 days, election officials across all 72 counties in Wisconsin will work days, nights and weekends to recount nearly three million ballots, an effort initiated and financed by Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, who has suggested that voting machines in the state could have been hacked. Very few people expect that the recount will reverse the outcome of the election. President-elect Donald J. Trump triumphed here over Hillary Clinton by 22,177 votes, and in Michigan by 10,704 votes, a margin that a lawyer for Mrs. Clinton, Marc Elias, said had never been overcome in a recount. Legal challenges to the vote in Pennsylvania, where Mr. Trump leads by 70,638 votes, are also underway.
… Here in Elkhorn, a city of about 10,000 people in Walworth County in southern Wisconsin, the recount began in a government building downtown, where workers approached their task with both urgency and trepidation. They are expecting to count ballots for close to 12 hours a day until the task is complete – their deadline is Dec. 12. The Electoral College will vote on Dec. 19.
“We’re going to be working long hours, but we’re going to get this done,” said Kimberly S. Bushey, the clerk for Walworth County. When a co-worker suggested that the group would be taking a lunch break at some point, she answered with a terse “Maybe.”
Tabulators, mostly retirees, are being paid $25 for each half day they work, and county officials say they would bring in workers as needed to count the 51,000 ballots in time.
Full Article: ‘We’re Going to Get This Done’: Wisconsin Vote Recount Is Underway – The New York Times.