In Michigan a ruling from a federal judge has ended any real hope of a complete recount.
A recount that started Monday ended Wednesday night. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith set aside his earlier order that got the recount moving, acting after the state appeals court said Stein doesn’t qualify as an “aggrieved” candidate under Michigan law.
The initial order from Judge Goldsmith promised he would review his decision if there was a ruling from the state court. There was. He did. It’s over.
A federal judge’s ruling that effectively halted Michigan’s presidential recount after three days assures Republican Donald Trump’s narrow victory in the state.
Considering Michigan’s ruling that districts with even one ballot difference between paper ballots and reported totals couldn’t be counted knocked out over 370 districts in the Detroit area alone, it’s not clear that a recount would have actually addressed any genuine issues.
In Wisconsin the count is 70 percent complete, but it hasn’t produced much difference in the outcome.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Democrat Hillary Clinton has gained 82 votes so far on Trump, a Republican who won the Nov. 8 election in the state by more than 22,000 votes.
That’s a reversal of an earlier report showing a 140 vote gain for Trump, and it comes after 309 uncounted votes were discovered. Some voters in one Wisconsin district were given the wrong kind of pen, one that couldn’t be scanned by the optical scanners, causing their ballots to be missed until the hand count.
In Pennsylvania Trump’s lead is still outside the 0.5 percent needed to trigger an automatic recount, and with only a (literal) handful of ballots left to count, that alternative seems out of the question.
A hearing on the possibility of a statewide recount is scheduled for Friday, with Trump’s campaign already lodging complaints that such a late start would make it impossible to complete the recount before the federal deadline on December 13.
The judge’s ruling that on Wednesday effectively ended any shot at the kind of forensic analysis of voting machines the Green Party originally requested is available online.
In Nevada, the partial recount should be completed by the end of the week. If it shows over a one percent difference in votes for De La Fuente, it will trigger a statewide recount, and in De La Fuente’s case, his existing vote count is so low that as few as three votes could be enough.
In Florida, three voters sued for a recount on Monday. The filing is under review, but no hearing had been scheduled as of Wednesday.