Trump Asks To Recount Votes In Wisconsin, How Does It Work And Can It Change Results?

President of the United States Donald Trump (Instagram / realdonaldtrump)

JAKARTA - Democratic candidate for the President of the United States (US), Joe Biden declared his victory in Wisconsin, one of the most contested regions. However, President Donald Trump's Campaign Manager Bill Stepien complained that the votes were recounted. How is the process? Can things change?

According to the state regulation of Wisconsin, the vote recount for the Presidential Election is indeed possible. Such applications can be made on the condition that the difference is less than one percent.

For the cost, if the difference in votes between the two candidates is less than 0.25 percent, the state will bear. However, if the difference is more than that, the cost of the process is borne by the campaign team of the applicant.

A quick count on Wednesday November 4 showed Biden leading Trump by 0.6 percent or about 20,500 votes in Wisconsin. That amount allows Trump to file a recount at his own expense.

So how much does it cost? As an illustration, as reported by The Washington Post, the presidential candidate from the Green Party, Jill Stein once paid nearly 3.5 million US dollars to recount the election votes four years ago.

How long?

Still according to Wisconsin state rules, each province must complete re-registration and submit the results to the state until before November 17. That means the Trump campaign team has about 12 days left.

Applications for a recount of votes can be made no later than 5 pm on the first business day after the states have received the final vote count results from the 72 provinces. Meanwhile, the deadline for provinces to submit election results is 17 November.

The recount must at least begin by 9 a.m. on the third day after the Wisconsin Electoral Commission orders it. Meanwhile, the district board of investigations must complete the recount and forward the results to the state no later than 13 days after being ordered. Then, how is the process?

The states will first redistribute the counted ballots to the provinces. There, the votes were then checked and recounted. They can do the counting manually, or by reloading ballots through a tabulator machine.

As an illustration, Winnebago Deputy Registrar, Julie Barthels once gathered 40 people every day to manually count the 84,000 ballots in his territory in 2016. "It went very smoothly, and we hope this one will be the same," said Barthels quoted by The Post.

Can it change the results?

According to officials in Wisconsin, recounts there rarely change the final result significantly. "I hope that if there is a recount, the numbers won't change much," said Scott McDonell, a clerk for Democrats in the Dane region.

In line with McDonell, a clerk in Brown's area, Juno said only a few votes had changed at the 2016 vote recount. "One [candidate] will lose one vote, but will pick one more vote later ... For the most part, they are like each other. beat, "he said.

Statewide, in 2016, Clinton increased his vote tally by 713 votes, while Trump increased his number of votes by 844. This means Trump's overall winning margin was added to 131 votes as a result of the recount.

According to former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the 20,000 vote gap is a high challenge for Trump. But he added that the process of "re-extracting" local votes that is now underway could reveal problems that exist in the current counting process.

"That will make the prospect of changing outcomes more likely," Walker said. "In essence, no one can declare victory in Wisconsin until the ballot record canvas is certified by the state."