No sooner than the United States elections were announced, returning Donald J. Trump as the 45th President did the protests across the country began. Concerns were raised about the integrity of the results in at least three States – Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Despite refusing to file for recounts, having conceded defeat on the 9th of November, Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff later agreed to support the recount efforts spearheaded by the Green Party’s Jill Stein “in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”

Apart from the recount in three states sponsored by the Green Party, the Reform Party’s Presidential candidate, Rocky De La Fuente also filed for a partial recount in Nevada and then three voters filed for a recount in Florida on the 6th of December.

So how were the recounts conducted?

The recount was essentially a re-tabulation of the results of the elections in the States and was conducted by the United States Election Assistance Committee.

First, the committee had to develop a timeline for each recount. The timeline this year was set at 6 days before the Electoral College met in person on the 13th of December.

For different states, there are different electoral laws that guide the recounts. Also, the mode of recount petitioned for by the complainant (s) was important. In Florida, the three voters who petitioned for recount filed for a complete hand recount in their state while in Nevada, the recount petitioned for was partial.

In Wisconsin, the committee had to recount nearly 3 million presidential ballots and in Michigan, 4.8 million ballots had to be recounted by hand. And even to an extent, it was a county by county affair. In counties like Wayne in Michigan, – because of improper seals on ballot boxes and other issues like poll book counts not matching the number of actual ballots cast on vote scanner machines, the original votes remain, ensuring that 67% of the Wayne votes.

Who handled the costs?

The Committee was charged with preparing an estimate of the cost for conducting the recount.

The recount effort had a $7 million funding goal. That budget was based on estimates of filing fees ($1.1m in Wisconsin, $0.5m in Pennsylvania and $0.6m in Michigan) and an estimated $2m-$3m in attorney’s fees as well as the money required to hire recount observers across all three states.

When Stein first launched the campaign on 23 November, the fundraising goal was $2.5 million but less than a day in, the goal was raised to $4.5million and by the 25th of November, it was raised finally to $7m.

Who paid?

The Wisconsin election commission charged the Jill Stein campaign before beginning the recount. In 2011, when Wisconsin held a statewide recount of the supreme court election, it cost about $520,000 and twice as many votes were cast in this year’s presidential race.

How did it go?

Wisconsin

These started on the 1st of December but on the 2nd of December, a Trump Super PAC filed a federal lawsuit to halt the recount in Wisconsin which District Judge, James Peterson denied. What is interesting is that Judge Peterson noted in denying the halting of the recoun that there was no chance that it would change the results of the election.

Wisconsin’s recount was completed and it increased Hillary Clinton’s vote total in the state by 713 votes, while Trump increased his by 844, widening his lead by 131 votes over the original November 8 count and reaffirming his victory there. Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen stated that the recount had uncovered no evidence that any of the state’s voting machines had been hacked or otherwise tampered with.

This is how many of the recounts went -either halted by court actions or returning results that didn’t really change the status quo. All the recounts had to be sent in by the 12th of December before the Electoral College met on the next day to finally determine the fate of the November 8th elections.