Wisconsin’s Dane County Affirms Biden’s Win After Recount

(Bloomberg) -- Officials in Dane County, Wisconsin, wrapped up their recount of ballots in the presidential election, confirming Joe Biden’s win in the Democratic stronghold.

The outcome was similar to that in Milwaukee county, where a retally of votes that finished on Friday showed Biden slightly extending his lead.

President Donald Trump’s campaign requested recounts in the state’s two most populous counties that, like most such efforts, barely moved the needle on the vote totals.

In Dane County, which includes the state capital of Madison, officials said Biden and Trump saw a reduction of 91 and 46 votes, respectively, after the recount.

Biden received 260,094 votes in the county while Trump received 78,754, according to Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell. Recount results announced Friday in Milwaukee County gave Biden a net gain of 132 votes.

Trump said Saturday he isn’t abandoning his drive to overturn the election results in the state.

The Trump campaign attacked practices around absentee ballots when it requested the recount in the two counties, but election officials in the state have repeatedly defended the integrity of the election.

McDonell said on Sunday that the recount was a “success” and should provide reassurance that the election was run properly. “What this recount showed was that there was absolutely no evidence of voter fraud in this election,” he said.

Recounts rarely show more than a small number of vote changes. Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes, an outcome that’s expected to be certified on Tuesday. The Trump campaign paid $3 million to cover the cost of the recounts in the two counties, a cost driven higher due to safety measures needed to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Trump and his legal team, led by Rudy Giuliani, have made multiple assertions of election fraud on Twitter and in comments to the media. But those allegations haven’t surfaced in court, where evidence must be presented.

On Friday, a Trump-appointed judge in Pennsylvania made note of that discrepancy in rejecting the president’s attempt to revive a lawsuit seeking to undo the state’s certification of Biden as the winner.

“Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” wrote U.S. Circuit Court Judge Stephanos Bibas.

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