title:  Battleground State To Move Forward With UNPRECEDENTED Statewide General Election Recount
text: Perhaps the Green Party isn t so useless after all. Jill Stein s push for recounts in some battleground states is gaining momentum. Stein raised $5 million to cover the costs of recounts over the Thanksgiving holiday, and as soon as the Green Party pays its fee, the Wisconsin Elections Board is prepared to go forward with a statewide recount.The elections board has already put an internal team together, they ve been working with their county clerks, and they ve arranged for the necessary legal counsel from the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Michael Haas, the election board s administrator, said: We plan to hold a teleconference meeting for county clerks next week and anticipate the recount will begin late in the week after the Stein campaign has paid the recount fee, which we are still calculating. This is unlike the Florida recounts in 2000, where the vote was so close it automatically triggered a machine recount. From there, well, we all remember how it spiraled out of control. Al Gore won the popular vote that year, but not nearly to the degree that Hillary has won this year s popular vote.Also, Wisconsin does not have an automatic recount trigger   a candidate has to request a recount no matter how close the vote is.A battleground state recount isn t going to help Jill Stein any, and she knows that, so what s her game here? She says she s worried that foreign hackers skewed our votes and elected Trump for us. The Green Party is actually asking Wisconsin for a reconciliation of paper records, which goes a step beyond a simple vote recount   it s an audit of paper ballots and paper trails from electronic voting machines. They re focusing on the substantial increase of absentee ballots in Wisconsin, along with the electronic voting systems that have been under scrutiny since we began seeing massive cyberattacks from parties interested in influencing our election results.Stein s fundraising website makes it clear that they know there s no guarantee any states in which the Greens are petitioning will actually move on to a recount, and she does admit that they don t have a smoking gun that proves Trump s win is illegitimate.In fact, Wisconsin actually doesn t believe a recount will change anything, despite the fact that some major vote discrepancies have already been found. Howver, provided all paperwork is filed properly, they will generally proceed with their recounts regardless.Hillary is now leading the national popular vote by 2.1 million, and is approaching a 2 percent margin. That s a greater margin than John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Grover Cleveland, James A. Garfield, and James K. Polk had when they were elected. If her lead continues to grow, she could approach Jimmy Carter s margin, and perhaps George W. Bush s margin of victory in 2004.Hillary and her campaign have stayed quietly out of the recount debate thus far. Stein and the Green Party are pushing for recounts in both Michigan and Pennsylvania as well, but it s not yet known whether those two states will actually do it. It s also not clear whether this could flip the election. What Wisconsin does in the coming days could set an interesting tone.Photo of Donald Trump by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images. Photo of Hillary Clinton by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images