A recount in one of Wisconsin’s largest counties confirmed and even narrowly expanded President-elect Joe Biden’s lead over President Trump. It also confirmed the absurdity of the Trump campaign’s allegations of widespread voter fraud.
The Trump campaign requested a partial recount in Dane County and Milwaukee County earlier this month, alleging voting irregularities that threw into question the legitimacy of Biden’s win. But several weeks and $3 million later, the only thing Trump proved is that Biden won the state by 87 more votes than were originally recorded. Trump netted 46 votes in Dane County while Biden netted 132 votes in Milwaukee County, bringing Biden’s statewide margin to about 20,695 votes.
Trump announced his intention to continue pursuing the long-shot case in Wisconsin, and his campaign reportedly plans to try and throw out votes cast during Wisconsin’s early in-person voting time period. Trump claims these people voted illegally, but the fact is that Wisconsin has been conducting early in-person voting for decades, including during the 2016 election that he won.
At this point, it is unclear what Trump is trying to argue. He has pushed the conspiracy theory touted by attorney Sidney Powell that Dominion Voting Systems switched millions of votes for Trump over to Biden, but his campaign didn’t even bother to request recounts in the Wisconsin counties that used Dominion’s software. Surely, if Dominion’s program was as unreliable as Powell and the president have claimed, he would have directed his campaign to pursue a thorough legal investigation into the matter.
But just like in the courtroom, Trump’s team is saying one thing in public and another very different thing behind closed doors. The team knows the president’s allegations of massive voter fraud would not hold up in a court of law, so his lawyers have not even tried to make that claim before a judge. But this has not stopped the president from claiming repeatedly that he beat Biden “by a lot.”
Some of the Trump campaign’s arguments are worth considering. For example, it is concerning that Wisconsin’s election officials reportedly directed clerks to fill in the addresses for witnesses on some absentee ballot envelopes in what appears to be a direct violation of state law. But the question has never been about whether there were irregularities since there is and always will be some degree of fraud present in a democratic process. Rather, the question is about whether these irregularities were widespread enough to change the outcome of the election.
The answer is no. Wisconsin’s recount confirmed as much, as has the Trump campaign’s legal quest.
