Trump Campaign Is Paying for a Partial Wisconsin Recount

In 2016, President Trump picked up an extra 162 votes in Wisconsin after Green Party candidate Jill Stein requested and paid for a statewide recount. This time around, he's hoping for a lot more votes from a much narrower recount. State election officials say the Trump campaign has paid $3 million for a recount in two counties instead of the estimated $7.9 million a full Wisconsin recount would cost, CNN reports. The Trump campaign says it is asking for recounts in Milwaukee County and Dane County, Democratic strongholds that Joe Biden won by large margins. Trump, who has refused to concede the election, is 20,608 votes behind Biden in Wisconsin, according to unofficial results.

The Trump campaign says it chose Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes state capital Madison, because its observers weren't allowed close enough to counting tables. But "that’s not why they were chosen," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "They were chosen because they are the two counties that have a very high percentage of Democratic voters. That’s 100% why they were chosen. Everybody knows that." In 2016, Stein raised more than $5 million to fund recounts after Trump's unexpected win, the Guardian reported at the time. She argued, without evidence, that voting systems could have been hacked. (More Election 2020 stories.)