2016 Postmortem

New post on Palmer Report


Hundreds of uncounted votes in Milwaukee already uncovered by Wisconsin recount
by Bill Palmer
With the statewide recount in Wisconsin still getting underway, and most counties not yet having posted any revised vote totals on the state's official election website, reports on the ground from designated recount observers have proven to be crucial in tracking the progress and developments. For instance in Milwaukee County, the state's largest county, the recount has already caused hundreds of previously uncounted votes to now be counted.

Ana Ortiz-Monasterio Draa, a Wisconsin recount observer representing third party candidate Jill Stein, posted the following information to the Facebook group which observers have been using for information sharing:

"The county election board did their hearings for disputed ballots at the front of the room. The only large number of votes that was in dispute was 500+ City of Milwaukee votes they were going to toss because the ballots were not signed. I argued the case against the Trump volunteer from NY. The board followed their precedent of not disenfranchising voters because of poll workers errors, accepted the votes."

Her post can be found in the comments section of this Facebook post. In other words, these five hundred votes were ignored during the original vote totals, but will now be included. With Hillary Clinton having received two things of the original vote in Milwaukee County, it's likely that the vast majority of these five hundred new votes are also for Clinton.

This likely explains why the Trump campaign observer, who rather curiously flew in from New York just to act in that role, tried to fight so hard to prevent the five hundred votes from being counted. But as the observer states above, these votes will count. With a statewide margin of only around twenty thousand votes, fairly small changes such as this block of five hundred votes can potentially add up to change the winner of Wisconsin.