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Elections Results 2016: North Carolina Governor Files For Recount, Wisconsin Also Preparing For That Possibility

By Christine Beswick
Published on: 07:12 PST, Nov 23, 2016

It’s been just over two weeks since Election Day in the United States, where Donald Trump was named the President-elect. But the election results for 2016 have not been certified yet, and many states are still in a state of upheaval as they work to certify the votes. Politico reports that North Carolina is one of those states in upheaval, after the Governor of swing state North Carolina has filed for a recount of 2016 election results for the state after he lost the gubernatorial race.

Swing state Wisconsin is also experiencing some peculiar discrepancies before certifying their votes, and they are preparing for a recount in at least one of their precincts, according to the most recent update from the Wisconsin Election Commission on November 22.

The public is in a state of upheaval as well, with a movement called #AuditTheVote still trending on Facebook and Twitter, and protests against Trump still happening worldwide.

Wisconsin’s 10 electoral college votes might still be up for grabs, and it is one of the swing states where there appears to be some irregularities in the final election results for 2016.

It is one of the states mentioned in a recent report in New York Magazine, where Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Computer Security and Society, recently revealed to the Hillary Clinton campaign that there is “persuasive evidence” to suggest that 2016 election results in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were “manipulated or hacked.”

To be clear, the evidence is listed as circumstantial, but Alex Halderman suggests that his statistical analysis of the election results hints that Hillary Clinton might “have been denied as many as 30,000” votes in the state of Wisconsin. She lost the state by 27,000. The experts say there is enough evidence to warrant an independent review of the election results.

While the evidence is listed as circumstantial, many journalists on Twitter are putting a lot of stock into the information.

Wisconsin Public Radio, or, WPR, also reported recently that there might have been some voter suppression happening in Wisconsin, particularly in Milwaukee, as a very small number of provisional ballots have been counted in the final election results for 2016 for Wisconsin. WPR reports that “fewer than 20 percent” of the provisional ballots cast in Wisconsin were counted, meaning, 80 percent were not.

Their data comes from the Wisconsin Elections Commission website that tallies that 750 provisional ballots were cast in Wisconsin, and 618 of those were cast because voters did not have the required photo ID. Of the 750 provisional ballots, only 116 were counted, with 399 of them being marked as “deadline expired” and another 278 “outright rejected.”

It was the first election in Wisconsin where photo ID was required. A 99-year-old man once voted in his life at a time when women weren’t allowed to vote and rode his bike to the polls in Wisconsin, only to discover his University of Wisconsin staff ID that he has always used to vote wasn’t acceptable, reports The Nation.

Vote Rides was reportedly used to take this man to the DMV to get the proper paperwork so he could vote, but it is unclear if he was required to use a provisional ballot due to ID matters.

In addition to provisional ballot issues, Wisconsin is also dealing with some strange numbers as discovered by Halderman in New York Magazine. Screenshots of vote tallies on Twitter have been circulating that are also lending more support to the theory that there might have been votes cast for Hillary Clinton that went to Donald Trump.

This screenshot illustrates tallies where more votes were counted for the office of the President than were cast. Those results were changed over the course of the day yesterday.

When those results changed, journalist Dan Solomon wrote about the significance, and about how Donald Trump’s margin of victory in Wisconsin dropped considerably.

Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District Khary Pennebaker has also released a breaking tweet that he is “currently assessing” what options he may have regarding the election results in Wisconsin’s fifth district.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Elections Commission states on their website that at least one Wisconsin County is preparing for either an audit or a recount. In a release dated November 22, the Elections Commission has stated that 2016 elections results have been reported to the Commission, and the staff is “conducting data quality checks prior to certification of the results.”

The Commission also states that they are “continuing to prepare for a potential recount in State Senate District 32.” In that district that includes Monroe, Vernon, La Crosse, and Crawford counties, there is a vote differential of 56 votes between the two top candidates for Senate. The deadline for the candidate seeking a recount is 5 p.m. today, and this has not yet happened at the time of press.

At the same time, the Wisconsin Elections Commission states that an audit of the machines used for voting in Wisconsin is also underway. From the statement on their website, the audit process is described as follows.

“The Commission has begun the post-election voting equipment audit process, as required by state statutes. More than 100 reporting units have been randomly selected for hand-count audits, and the affected clerks have been notified to complete the audits by December 15. The purpose of the audit is to ensure that voting equipment used in Wisconsin is accurately counting ballots according to federal standards, which is 1 error in 500,000 ballots.”

According to the Elections Commission, voters in Wisconsin that used a provisional ballot or otherwise can check the status of their ballot by calling 1-866-VOTEWIS.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a recount is likely, leaving North Carolina’s 15 electoral college votes still not certified. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory announced yesterday that he has filed for a recount in the state, reports Politico. This comes after a contentious gubernatorial race, with multiple challenges to individual ballots in many counties in North Carolina over the last two weeks.

Republican Governor Pat McCrory has lost his bid to continue his term as Governor of North Carolina, with his Democrat opponent Roy Cooper leading by 8,500 votes. State law in North Carolina permits a recount if the margin is fewer than 10,000 votes, reports Politico. Campaign manager Russell Peck for Governor McCrory said in a statement, “With many outstanding votes yet to be counted for the first time, legal challenges, ballot protests, and voter fraud allegations, we must keep open the ability to allow the established recount process to ensure every legal vote is counted properly.”

During the course of the count of elections 2016 results in North Carolina, the McCrory campaign has reportedly been alleging that “widespread voter fraud” altered the results, and included dead people and felons voting. His complaints have reportedly largely been dismissed by Republican-controlled boards of the election.

Trey Nix, the campaign manager for Democrat Roy Cooper, said in a statement on the recount, “This is nothing but a last-ditch effort from Gov. McCrory to delay and deny the results of this election. We are confident that a recount will do nothing to change the fact that Roy Cooper has won this election.”

Whether other swing states will follow suit remains to be seen, but deadlines are approaching.

New York Magazine reports that the deadline for Wisconsin is Friday, for Michigan, it is November 30, and for Pennsylvania, it is November 28. It would be up to Hillary Clinton campaign to call for a recount or audit, although the Secretaries of State in the swing states in question might also have that authority to recount the 2016 elections results. However, as we went to press, it was announced that Green Party candidate Jill Stein has announced that she will be filing for a recount in all three states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, the #AuditTheVote trend continues on social media, with many members of the public calling on the Department of Justice to put pressure at the federal level to audit the vote or recount the vote.

[Feature Image by Rogelio V. Solis/AP Images]

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