Wisconsin officials to set timeline for recount

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election officials are expected to meet Monday to discuss a possible timeline for a recount of the state’s presidential election.

The recount comes at the request of Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who says it’s important to determine whether hacking may have affected the results. Stein says she also plans to request recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

President-elect Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and has a small lead in Michigan.

There’s no evidence voter results were hacked or electronic voting machines were compromised.

While Hillary Clinton’s campaign formally joined Stein’s Wisconsin recount effort, a lawyer for the Democratic campaign has said there is “no actionable evidence” of an altered outcome.

Wisconsin officials say it will be tough to finish the recount by the federally required deadline of Dec. 13.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff suggests Hillary Clinton is backing away from a deal worked out between the two presidential campaigns on how the loser would concede to the winner.

Reince Priebus told  “Fox News Sunday” that Clinton’s team agreed that once The Associated Press called the race in favor of one candidate, the other would call within 15 minutes to concede.

Priebus says that’s just what happened election night.

But now he’s questioning whether Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias is backing down from that deal by announcing Clinton will participate in a recount in Wisconsin and may do the same in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The push is being led by the Green Party’s Jill Stein.

AP’s director of media relations, Lauren Easton, says AP “calls races when it is clear that one candidate has prevailed over the other. We have no knowledge of what the candidates do with that information until there is a public claim of victory or a concession.”

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