Stein pays $3.5M for Wisconsin recount

MADISON, Wis. — Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has delivered $3.5 million to the state of Wisconsin to guarantee a recount of the presidential vote there.

Stein faced a 4:30 p.m. deadline to deliver the money so a recount could start on Thursday. The Wisconsin Elections Commission says they got a wire transfer shortly before Tuesday’s deadline.

Stein says she worries the results were hacked, and says a recount is the only way to know for sure. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 22,000 votes, and Stein was far back.

Stein was in court Tuesday afternoon seeking to force the Wisconsin recount to be done by hand. She is also pursuing recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

One of the two candidates who filed for a recount in Wisconsin’s presidential election said he is withdrawing his petition because it is “cost prohibitive.”

In a statement released Tuesday, Rocky De La Fuente, the nominee of the Reform Party, said he intended instead to file for limited recounts in Nevada and Florida.

“I do not want to favor one candidate over another,” De La Fuente said in a statement. “My only interest is to create a nationwide awareness of the vulnerability of our election system and to do everything possible to assure that your vote counts for the candidate for whom it is cast.”

The candidate would have had to split the estimated $3.5 million cost of a recount in Wisconsin with Dr. Jill Stein, the nominee for the Green Party. Stein will now have to cover the entire cost of the recount, which she has called “exorbitant.” But Commission officials now say they made a computation error when they compiled county clerks’ individual cost estimates. They now believe the recount will cost $3.9 million, the Associated Press reported.

Stein’s attorneys will also appear in court Tuesday afternoon on a petition to require a hand recount of the entire state, which could drive the cost even higher. Some counties have chosen to do a hand recount already, but others are planning to use optical scanning voting machines.

DOJ attorneys filed briefs Tuesday arguing that Stein hasn’t shown how a hand recount would change the election’s results and has offered no evidence of any problems with automatic tabulating equipment. They argued that she’s offered only speculation about security risks inherent in all electronic voting systems.