It's a wrap

Few votes changed, no fraud found, in Dane County presidential recount

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Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell seemed relaxed, perhaps relieved, when the Board of Canvassers met Sunday morning at Monona Terrace to certify the results of the presidential recount vote in the county. The first couple of days of the recount, which launched a week ago, were hard, he noted.

He thanked all the members of the board as well as the other parties involved in the recount including his staff, the tabulators, the county workers in charge of information technology and payroll, and the campaign observers and attorneys on hand to watch and challenge the actions of the ballot counters. McDonell said the process eased and improved over time. “I thought everyone was extremely professional and helpful. We were constantly giving each other ideas on how this could run better — and implemented those.

“You learn as you go,” he added. “Everybody learns, the tabulators, the observers, all of us.” 

There were just about 50 or so people at the meeting Sunday including McDonell, Joyce Waldrop, a Republican, and former Madison Ald. Allen Arntsen, a Democrat, who make up the Board of Canvassers; one table of lawyers and observers representing the Joe Biden campaign and another for Donald Trump’s campaign; about 10 reporters; and a handful of security guards. Hundreds of poll workers were typically in the large exhibition hall when the recount, which wrapped up Saturday, was underway.

The Trump campaign fronted $3 million for a recount of the Nov. 3 results in Milwaukee and Dane counties. When McDonell announced the final tallies the needle had barely moved. Biden lost 64 votes and Trump 6 for a 58-vote gain for Trump. In Milwaukee, which concluded its recount Friday, Biden picked up 132 votes. Together Biden emerged from the recount with 74 more votes than in the original canvass counts done by both counties.

McDonell said the votes ultimately disqualified in Dane County were due to ballots that lacked voter signatures or witness signatures. “There should be an extremely high bar for disenfranchisement,” he said. 

He was unequivocal that the recount process was transparent and fair. “For me what this recount showed was there was absolutely no evidence of voter fraud.” One type of actual fraud, he explained later to reporters, would have been if more ballots were found than people who signed the poll books. “There was no concrete example at all of anything improper.”

Trump campaign spokeswoman Jenna Ellis nevertheless questioned the Wisconsin recount results in a tweet: “The recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties have revealed serious issues regarding the legality of ballots cast,” she wrote, offering no evidence of illegality. Trump, himself, also tweeted on Saturday that his campaign has found “many illegal votes” and promised that a lawsuit would be filed Monday or Tuesday. His tweet was flagged by Twitter: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.” 

Many of the ballot challenges raised by Trump’s attorneys were aimed at voters who identified themselves “indefinitely confined,” which allowed them to cast ballots without submitting a photo ID as is required of all other voters. McDonell said that state law allows voters to self-identify as being indefinitely confined and that he expects most who claimed that status were older voters. He said he personally received many calls in the run-up to the Nov. 3 presidential election from senior citizens who normally voted in person but were concerned about doing that this year because of COVID-19. Many did not know how to upload a photo, did not have a smartphone to do so, or anyone to help them. “There really was a sense of terror among senior citizens about this,” he said.

McDonell questioned why the Trump campaign requested recounts in just two counties, targeting votes there for “draw down” (disqualification) when the policies being challenged — voting early in person or identifying as an indefinitely confined voter — are longstanding practices statewide. 

“We need to think about whether that is equal protection under the Constitution,” he said. "Those voters aren’t being equally protected if that were true — that the same action in one county as another, one vote gets tossed, the other doesn’t. I think that’s disturbing."

He said the projected cost of the recount in Dane County is $740,000. “I expect us to use up quite a lot of that money,” he said. 

There are already two lawsuits pending before the state Supreme Court asking justices to invalidate the results of the election and allow the state Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, to independently decide how to cast the state’s votes in the Electoral College. The court has not yet said whether it will take the case.

The certified results of the recount from Dane and Milwaukee counties have now been received by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Today, the chair of the commission, Ann Jacobs, will sign the canvass statement that determines the final results of the Nov. 3 presidential election and the recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, says Reid Magney, spokesperson for the commission. 

“Once she does that,” Magney adds, “that opens the window for the Trump campaign to go to court.”

According to state law, any further legal challenge to the results must be filed in circuit court within five days. 

[Editor's note: The article was updated to reflect corrected numbers released Nov. 30 from the Dane County clerk's office.]