Wisconsin completes canvass and certifies Biden as winner in state
The Wisconsin Election Commission on Monday completed the state canvass and determination of the local recounts, confirming President-elect Joe Biden's win in the Badger State by 20,682 votes. President Trump on Saturday pledged his team would file a lawsuit in the state after the state's partial recount was finished.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Monday signed the certification of Mr. Biden's win
The Wisconsin Election Commission staff reviewed the canvass statements from all 72 counties. That came after Wisconsin's Dane County and Milwaukee County completed their recounts in the last week, giving Mr. Biden a net increase of 74 votes in the two counties that conducted recounts. The Trump campaign paid $3 million for recounts in Wisconsin.
Republicans on the commission wanted chair Ann Jacobs to hold off on the determination, but she insisted the finalizing of the vote needs to take place ahead of any potential suit. The Wisconsin Elections Commission said in a press release on Monday that the campaign couldn't file an appeal until the determination was signed.
The Trump campaign is trying to throw out tens of thousands of ballots they say were cast illegally, including in-person absentee ballots and ballots by voters who said they were indefinitely confined, which allows them to vote absentee without providing photo identification. The Trump campaign also challenged many absentee ballot certificate envelopes where a clerk or election worker filled in a witness' address information, a practice that has been in place since 2016.
Two separate lawsuits from conservatives have asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to throw out the election results, but so far, the court hasn't weighed in on whether they'll take either case.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, blasted the Trump campaign's unfounded assertions of mass fraud, and called the Trump campaign's approach a "Jim Crow strategy for mass disenfranchisement of voters."
"With the partial recount of the presidential election complete, there remains no question that, as usual, this year's general election in Wisconsin was conducted professionally and securely. There's no basis at all for any assertion that there was widespread fraud that would have affected the results," Kaul said. "It's clear that President Trump and his representatives used the recount to seek after-the-election changes to the rules. Those changes would result in tens of thousands of votes, if not more, being thrown out—and the President's representatives have only sought to have those changes applied to votes cast in our two most populous counties, in which the majority of Black Wisconsinites live."
