Chali Pittman
Attorneys for both presidential candidates, including lawyers from the Biden campaign, above, are at Monona Terrace Convention Center to observe and make challenges during the recount.
In late November 2016, Anne Murphy-Lom walked into a conference room in Madison’s City-County Building to start her shift as a poll worker. Welcomed by election staff, she took her seat at a long conference table with 10 other volunteers to begin recounting ballots cast in the Nov. 8 presidential election. The campaign for Green Party candidate Jill Stein had pre-paid $3.5 million for a recount in all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
Monitored by representatives from each political party and other poll observers, Murphy-Lom and her fellow volunteers tediously hand-counted ballots from townships and wards across Dane County, carefully sorting them into piles by candidate. For upwards of six hours each day, volunteers reviewed and double-checked ballots, recounting any time observers raised concerns.
Nearly 12 days later, they finished.
Murphy-Lom says there were issues with “a few ballots here and there, but the numbers usually came out the same. I am all for doing recounts and doing what people think is necessary. If it makes people feel better about the numbers, then I am happy to do it.”
Among the 311,557 ballots cast in Dane County in the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election, the margin for Donald Trump, the victor, changed by a mere 131 votes as a result of the statewide recount; Trump added 844 votes to his total and Hillary Clinton added 713.
Four years later, Murphy-Lom is ready to return to duty once again. At the request of Trump’s campaign, Dane County and Milwaukee County are embarking on a recount of the ballots cast in the heavily Democratic counties in the Nov. 3 election. The campaign wired the state $3 million on Tuesday to pay for a partial recount and submitted a petition for recount the next day. That night, after a long and contentious meeting, the Wisconsin Elections Commission authorized the recount. The recount, which must conclude by Dec. 1, is beginning today in both counties.
“I know that the eyes of the world will be on these two Wisconsin counties for the next few weeks,” Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s chief election official, said in a Nov. 19 news briefing. “We really do remain committed to providing the facts about the process and updates throughout.”
Wolfe clarified that the Board of Canvassers in each county is the body “charged with making the decisions at the recount.” Staff at the commission helps organize and support the process, she added.
She noted that the certification of election results completed Nov. 17 by all 72 counties — known as county canvass — found no problems; neither did the municipal canvass, which preceded it. Wolfe also expressed strong faith in Wisconsin’s elections system. “We look forward to again demonstrating the strength, security, integrity and transparency of our election systems in Wisconsin.”
Trump’s request for a recount, meanwhile, comes amid a disinformation campaign pushed by the president and his allies, alleging illegal voting by mail and voter fraud on Election Day, among a variety of other complaints. He has been threatening to request recounts in states across the country, especially in areas that favored Democrats and house large populations of Black voters. Currently, there is no evidence of voter fraud or ballot irregularities, and Trump’s lawyers have now dropped lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania, though the president continues to claim victory on Twitter.
Biden currently leads Trump in Wisconsin by 20,068 votes, according to the official county canvass results; between Madison and Milwaukee, Biden logged 577,455 votes in the two counties to Trump’s 213,157.
Greg Smith is a city of Madison poll worker who has worked recounts in the past. He says he thinks the recount is a useful exercise “and it proves we have a good system in place. Is it worth the cost? I’ll let someone else decide that, but is it gonna change anything? I highly doubt it.”
For Smith, the purpose of the recount extends beyond partisan concerns. The most important aspect of the process, he says, is to instill trust in the democratic system and remind community members that the work being done at the polls is well organized and designed to serve them.
“It’s a transparent process,” Smith says. “There will be lots of eyes looking at every step of it, and the results that come out can be trusted because of that.”
Chali Pittman
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell is coordinating the recount effort in Wisconsin's second largest county.
This year, COVID-19 poses unique challenges to the recount process. Usually, large groups of workers work in close physical proximity on a variety of tasks on site. According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, those required to be in the same room or facility include the members of the Board of Canvassers — which in Dane County includes Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, Joyce Waldrop, a Republican, and former Madison Ald. Allen Arntsen, a Democrat— tabulators, candidate representatives, public observers and other staff to assist with administrative and security-related tasks.
On Nov. 19, the elections commission verified revisions to the Elections Recount Procedures Manual to account for public health concerns. In collaboration with the Department of Health Services, the organization set new guidelines for COVID screening of all recount attendees, plans for sanitation, and social distancing and required mask wearing.
Recount workers are usually pulled from the ranks of veteran poll workers, but the danger of COVID-19 gives some of those workers pause.
“I have not been asked at this point, but I’m at an age right now and a home life where I need to be careful and think of COVID with the things I do,” says Smith. “But my heart is there, It’s been an honor to be a part of these in the past. Doing the recount makes sure that our processes are solid.” This time around, he adds, “I expect nothing less.”
The Dane County recount is taking place at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, and the Milwaukee County recount at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee.
Dane County won’t be hand-counting ballots in this recount. McDonell says the county is renting high-speed tabulators to help complete the job. A public test of the machines is being held Saturday.
“We hand-counted the entire recount [in 2016]. That was hard but I thought it was rewarding,” McDonell said on a Nov. 19 Zoom call with reporters. “This time, just because of COVID and the timelines, I felt using the machine option in the statutes made more sense for us and should speed it up.”
The Wisconsin Elections Commission will continue to monitor and meet with the Board of Canvassers from both counties throughout the process, collecting the final vote tallies after the 13-day deadline. Each location is required to keep complete minutes of each step completed in the process including objections made, evidence introduced, and any decisions of the Board of Canvassers.
Though the recount will likely not contribute to a significant change in election results, political analysts anticipate that the allegations made by the Trump campaign and initiation of a recount might bring forth a lawsuit in early December to be ruled on by the state Supreme Court.
Any person may attend the recount, following the same safety guidelines and requirements as election officials. This includes the candidates, their representatives or legal counsel, media representatives, and any other interested persons.
McDonell says approximately 80 people working on the recount will be protected by plexiglass; cameras trained on the process will also allow others to watch via a livestream.
"There's really no point in having a recount if it can't be observed," McDonell said when taking questions from the media. "That's important to me, and that's the spirit of our process."
