DETROIT — Michigan’s presidential recount expanded to several new counties on Tuesday, including its largest one, which includes Detroit. The fate of a statewide recount push in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, was awaiting action in federal court.
President-elect Donald Trump narrowly defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in both states and Wisconsin, which started its recount last week. The recounts requested by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein were not expected to change enough votes to overturn the result of the election.
Stein says her intent is to verify the accuracy of the vote. She has suggested that votes were susceptible to computer hacking.
Here’s what’s happening in each state:
WISCONSIN
Trump had widened his victory margin over Clinton in Wisconsin by 146 votes, with 23 of the state’s 72 counties having finished their recounts as of Tuesday. A federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Friday in a lawsuit filed last week by a Trump voter and two super PACs seeking to stop the recount.
MICHIGAN
A federal judge in Detroit ordered a statewide hand recount of roughly 4.8 million ballots that started in two of the state’s 83 counties on Monday. Six more started recounting Tuesday, including the largest, Wayne. Republicans appealed that ruling Monday.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Green Party filed a federal lawsuit on Monday seeking a statewide recount – a move that came after the party on Saturday dropped a case set to be argued Monday in court.
An updated count Monday by state election officials showed Trump’s lead shrinking to 47,750 as more counties finished counting overseas ballots and settled provisional ballot challenges. That is still shy of Pennsylvania’s 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount. Final counts are outstanding in some counties, but there are not enough uncounted votes to change the outcome, officials say.
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