Hillary Clinton Backs Wisconsin Recount

The Washington Post reported Saturday that Hillary Clinton's campaign is considering whether “outside interference" affected her loss in Wisconsin, according to lawyer Marc Elias, and will participate in the Wisconsin recount effort started by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Elias served as general counsel for Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. He also noted that the campaign had "quietly taken steps in the past two weeks" to investigate whether "outside interference" had affected vote outcomes in battleground states in a Medium post published Saturday morning, but that "we had not uncovered actionable evidence."

Elias wrote that while the Clinton campaign had done its own research, it was not until Stein filed for a recount in Wisconsin that it decide to publicly support the effort. Elias wrote that "now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides."

Elias did stress in the post that "since the day after the election we have had lawyers and data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that would suggest a hacked result. These have included analysts both from within the campaign and outside, with backgrounds in politics, technology and academia." Despite such analysis, that hasn't stopped recount buzz from building up. New York reported this week that a group of "prominent computer scientists and election lawyers" were encouraging Clinton to call for a recount.

While Clinton did not issue public calls or support for a recount, Stein led a charge for recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. She raised nearly $5 million for the recount effort, outdoing the $3,509,477 she raised for her own presidential campaign in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Stein filed the petition for recount in Wisconsin just before the deadline on Friday.

Even if the Wisconsin recount resulted in the state going to Clinton, she would still be far short of an Electoral College win. As Politico's Brent Griffiths noted, Clinton would also have to have recounts that went in her favor in Pennsylvania and Michigan to claim victory.

While Clinton's Electoral College vote fell short, her popular vote is chugging well ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's as the ballots continue to be counted. The latest report has Clinton with more than 2 million popular vote lead.