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Milwaukee County Officials To Begin Recount Thursday Morning

More Than 100 County Poll Workers Employed For Recount

By
Milwaukee County Clerk Joseph Czarnezki, County Elections Director Julietta Henry, and City Elections Commissioner Neil Albrecht
Ross Terrell/WPR

The more than 440,000 ballots cast in Milwaukee County during this year’s presidential election will be recounted starting at 9 a.m. Thursday. The recount process for the presidential election will take place on the city’s south side at the Milwaukee Election Commission warehouse located at 1901 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.

Milwaukee County Clerk Joseph Czarnezki said it is possible for the amount of votes the candidates received to change but that it should be a small number.

“We’re not anticipating that there will be a wide variance in the vote total,” Czarnezki said. “I don’t think we’re going to see a change in the outcome of the winner of the election in Wisconsin. That would be extremely rare for that to happen.”

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About 130 county poll workers will be employed on the first day of the recount.

Julietta Henry, the county’s election director, said they will be compensated at a rate comparable to the county’s minimum wage.

“There are some municipalities that pay $15 an hour including the city of Milwaukee,” Henry said. “We thought it would only be fair to offer that same amount for all of the inspectors.”

Czarnezki said they will report results to the Wisconsin Elections Commission nightly and they expect the recount to last until Dec. 12.

Doors for the recount open to the public at 8:30 a.m. and anyone with a photo ID can observe.

County officials said they do expect representatives of President-elect Donald Trump, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Green Party candidate Jill Stein to be present.