Wisconsin Judge Rejects Trump Supporters' Effort to Stop Recount

Updated. A Wisconsin judge has rejected an effort to stop the state's ongoing presidential vote reocunt filed by supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump, according to reports.

A lawsuit was filed late Thursday in a federal court in Madison by the Great America PAC, the Stop Hillary PAC and Ronald R. Johnson, a Wisconsin voter.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein requested recounts in Wisconsin and two other battleground states — Michigan and Pennsylvania — that swung the Nov. 8 election to Trump. Challenges have been filed in all three states.

In denying the request for a restraining order to halt to the Wisconsin recount, Judge James Peterson said plaintiffs did not prove they would be harmed if the recount continues as the state prepares its response to the lawsuit, which claims that some voters are treated differently than others. Peterson set a Dec. 9 hearing on the lawsuit.

The claim in the Wisconsin lawsuit is that the recount, which began Thursday, threatens the due process rights of Trump supporters like Johnson, the Associated Press reported. Also, the plaintiffs argued, errors are possible as election officials rush to meet the Dec. 13 deadline.

In Michigan, Trump filed a lawsuit with the state's Court of Appeals late Friday seeking to stop the recount, which the state Board of Canvassers said earlier in the day could continue. It mirrored arguments raised earlier in the day by the state's Republican attorney general, Bill Schuette, who filed an emergency motion with the state's Supreme Court to stop the recount.

Trump's campaign had officially objected to the recount Thursday. Both the attorney general and the Trump campaign claim that Stein is not an "aggrieved" party because she has not proven that fraud occurred.

The recounts were requested after a prominent group of election attorneys and computer scientists claimed to have uncovered “persuasive evidence” that the election results in the three battleground states could have been hacked.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons