Wisconsin governor certifies state’s electoral votes for Biden
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Monday formally certified Joe Biden’s victory, signing the paperwork to award the state’s 10 electoral votes to the President-elect after a recount in Wisconsin’s two most populous counties.
“Today I carried out my duty to certify the November 3rd election, and as required by state and federal law, I’ve signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for the slate of electors for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,” Evers, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I want to thank our clerks, election administrators, and poll workers across our state for working tirelessly to ensure we had a safe, fair, and efficient election.”
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The governor signed the papers shortly after the Wisconsin Elections Commission finalized the statewide results. Biden’s victory was affirmed after the Trump campaign-requested recount in two counties.
Though President Donald Trump’s campaign has pledged to further challenge the state’s results in court, the governor’s certification stands as a significant blow to Trump’s long-shot attempts to overturn election results in several states, including Wisconsin.
Election officials have now certified results in a number of other close states Trump had launched legal battles in, including Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, which certified its results earlier Monday.
Included among the Trump campaign’s efforts in Wisconsin was a request to election officials in Dane County to throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots. The county’s bipartisan panel of canvassers unanimously rejected that move.
Dane County’s recount, which was completed on Sunday, showed Biden won by 181,340 votes as the President-elect’s lead narrowed by 45 votes.
On Friday, Biden saw a net gain of 132 votes as part of a recount in Milwaukee County.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul blasted the Trump campaign on Monday for what he called a “disgraceful Jim Crow strategy” to disenfranchise Black voters during the recounts in the state.
“It’s clear that President Trump and his representatives used the recount to seek after-the-election changes to the rules. Those changes would result in tens of thousands of votes, if not more, being thrown out — and the President’s representatives have only sought to have those changes applied to votes cast in our two most populous counties, in which the majority of Black Wisconsinites live,” Kaul said in a statement.
“I have every confidence that this disgraceful Jim Crow strategy for mass disenfranchisement of voters will fail,” the statement read. “Wisconsin elections are decided by the will of the voters, not post-election legal maneuvering.”
This story has been updated with additional developments Monday.
