Do Recounts Historically Alter The Outcome Of A Race? Good Question
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Wisconsin does have some experience with recounts during a Presidential election. In 2016, Green Party candidate Jill Stein petitioned for one.
More than three million Wisconsinites voted in that race. After the recount, Trump only gained 131 more votes over Clinton.
According to a report by FairVote, that's not unusual. Researchers looked at the almost 5,000 statewide general elections from 2000 to 2015. They found 27 recounts. Fifteen of those recounts were in races where the victory margin 0.15% or less.
Of those 15, just three had reversals – a 2004 Governor race in Washington, a 2006 Auditor race in Vermont and the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.
Right after that election, Norm Coleman was up by 715 votes. After the 62-day recount, Al Franken took the lead with 225.
Fritz Knaak was one of Coleman's attorneys at the time. He talked with WCCO This Morning about the possibility of a recount today.
"A recount in this day and age is simply not going to generate more than a few hundred votes at most," Knaak said. "That's just practicality, basically, we're counting with machines, everybody is watching everybody else. Despite all the talk of fraud, it doesn't happen."
In Minnesota state races, there have been 27 recounts since 2000. None of them have changed the outcome of the election.
