The colossal waste of time and money that was the Wisconsin recount has officially wrapped up, and the final tally is not what Democrats were hoping beyond hope for; in fact, Donald Trump came out of it with even more votes and a slightly larger advantage over dethroned Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Wisconsin’s historic presidential recount ended Monday resulting in a net gain of 131 votes for President-elect Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said,” the Wisconsin State Journal reports. “Trump added 844 votes to his total for the Nov. 8 election, while Clinton added 713.”
Out of the total of 2,976 million ballots cast, the net increase ended up being only 837 ballots, a 0.03 percent change. In other words, rather than delegimitizing Trump’s win, as was the obvious goal of failed Green Party candidate Jill Stein and those who backed her stunt, including Clinton, the recount just demonstrated how tightly Wisconsin runs its election process.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission chair Mark Thomsen underscored the point in a statement issued after officially signing off on the result.
“Completing this recount was a challenge, but the real winners are the voters,” said Thomsen. “Based on the recount, they can have confidence that Wisconsin’s election results accurately reflect the will of the people, regardless of whether they are counted by hand or by machine.”
The Journal points out that the last recount in the state (in 2011) resulted in a similarly miniscule change: 312 votes out of 1.5 million cast (0.02%).
So how much money was wasted on the effort to discredit Trump’s win? Stein raised around $3.5 million dollars to force the recount, but the final cost could go up or down in the next few weeks. The counties must report their final costs by Dec. 30. If the cost is more than Stein paid, she will be on the hook to make up the difference; if it is less, that amount will be refunded to her.
While Thomsen, a Democrat, defended Stein’s multi-million-dollar recount effort, Republican elections commission member Don Milis denounced the whole thing as “an abuse of the system.”
Without any evidence, Stein alleged that the Russians had hacked the voting machines. After all the money and man hours, Thomsen came to the same conclusion that the commission held prior to the massive effort: No one hacked or tampered with the machines—more people simply voted for Trump than Clinton.