President-elect Joe Biden’s votes increased by 132 after the results of the Milwaukee County recount were announced. The recount in Wisconsin which cost the present administration $3 million was mandated by President Donald Trump who since the November 3 election has been making allegations of voter frauds after the presidential election.
With a net increase of 132 votes, Biden received a total of 257 increased ballots while Trump got 125 increased ballots in Milwaukee, the largest county in the state. Trump ordered that before the state announces its final results on Tuesday, the ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties will have to be recounted. The other county, Dane County will finish recounting its ballots on Sunday but not much difference is expected with Biden already leading by over 20,000 ballots.
“The recount only further asserts what we already know, our elections are transparent, fair, secure, and accurate,” George Christenson, the county clerk in Milwaukee said at the end of the recount.
The Trump campaign has revealed plans to take more legal steps to challenge the results in Wisconsin and other states but things don’t seem to be turning out well for the campaign. On Friday, a federal appellate court in Philadelphia dismissed one of the campaign’s many efforts to undermine the outcome of the election. The president’s lawyers have however stated that they would proceed to the Supreme Court, CNN reports.
One of the three judges in the panel that heard the case in the Philadelphia federal appeal courts, Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote that the American democracy has continued to survive because of the free and fair nature of elections conducted in the country, and anyone who wishes to challenge such fundamental part of the democracy needs solid proof and specific claims, both of which the Trump campaign was not able to provide.
The president has continued to challenge the results of the battleground state, declaring in a Saturday tweet that he won the election in Pennsylvania “by a lot” echoing a wrong claim he made on the night of the election. The president is challenging the results of most battleground states including Georgia even after the recount in the state.
His allegations against the officials and electoral system in Georgia began to raise some red flags among Republicans as the party is struggling to regain majority seats in the parliament. If the Georgia runoffs which will hold early January favor Democrats, then they and not Republicans would have the majority of the seats in the upper and lower houses.
It is also quite worrisome for local Republicans in Georgia that Trump has accused Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State in Georgia and a Republican, of being “an enemy of the people”. Supporters of the president who have been listening to his baseless allegations are talking about boycotting the runoffs in Georgia which would greatly benefit Democrats.
Source: theguardian.com
