All the ballots were not yet counted, in the State of Wisconsin, as Donald Trump and his army of lawyers were already asking for a recount. And it is very likely that some 3.3 million votes cast will be scrutinized there. In the absence of the slightest evidence of fraud in this American presidential, there is no way this will change the outcome of the vote in favor of Joe Biden and the goal is probably to save time.
Each state decides its own rules
But why recount in Wisconsin? Why not elsewhere? And who decides? As with many things in the United States, a federal country, each state decides its own rules. In Wisconsin, no automatic recount when the result is hyper-tight, as is the case in twenty-seven of the fifty states: a deviation of less than 0.5% triggers the procedure in North Dakota, less than 0.1% in Arizona, but less than 2,000 votes are needed in Michigan, two highly contested swing states.
In Wisconsin, the Trump camp should still get the vote recount, because it is legal (but at its own expense) when a candidate behind by less than 1% claims it, which for the moment is the case with only 20 000 voices difference. In Georgia, another state still disputed, the recount is by right if the margin is less than 0.5% … It remains to be seen whether the votes will be recounted in the whole state or only in certain constituencies. It is up to local justice to decide, knowing that the Biden camp can ask for the recount … in ridings won by Trump.
As if that were not enough, the postal vote, very important this year, complicates the situation. It has delayed the count in several states, it could make the recount hellish, where states require visual checks of signatures. To prevent operations from dragging on, some states have imposed a time limit for recount operations: thirteen days for Wisconsin. Others don’t, like Georgia.
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