All 72 Wisconsin Counties Have Finished Certifying Results. Biden Is Still the Winner.

The margin barely budged after local elections officials double-checked their counts.

President-elect Joe Biden is still the winner in Wisconsin after a canvass of all 72 counties’ election results confirmed the former vice president carried the state by a margin of fewer than 21,000 votes.

After certification, Biden’s lead over outgoing President Donald Trump grew from the 20,427 votes shown in unofficial results to 20,612, according to a tally by Scott Bauer of the Associated Press. Such a small change in the vote total is normal. Variations occur for numerous reasons, such as the counting of provisional ballots—which are not included in initial results—or correction of typos.

The completion of the canvassing process opens up the possibility for the Trump campaign to request a recount as it has promised. To do so, it would need to file its request by 5 p.m. Wednesday and pay the $7.9 million estimated cost upfront.

Trump’s campaign is allowed to request the recount under state law because Biden’s margin of victory is less than 1%, but the campaign must also pay for the recount in advance because the margin is greater than 0.25%.

Trump, in a flurry of empty threats and nonsensical lawsuits filed in different states as he lost them, vowed to request a recount in Wisconsin on Nov. 4, just hours after Biden was declared the state’s winner. As of Monday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it had still not been contacted by the campaign. 

Since the election, Trump’s reportedly cash-strapped campaign has been running a “stop the steal” fundraising effort to put toward legal funds to challenge election results in several states. However, an analysis of the fine print by Reuters revealed that only contributions above $8,000 will be put toward that campaign, while any smaller donations are funneled to the Republican National Committee and Trump’s new political action committee.

The campaign did not immediately respond to an email asking if it still plans to file for a recount.