On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Josh Douglas <joshuadouglas@uky.edu> wrote:

I don't believe there's an automatic recount.  However, "Any candidate voted for at any election or any elector who voted upon any referendum question at any election may petition for a recount."  Wisc. Stat. 9.01(1).  Additionally, if the margin is less than 0.5% the petitioner does not have to pay a fee to ask for a recount (so I guess that's sort of like an automatic recount if all you have to do is ask).

One wrinkle, that the losing candidate will want to know about, I
imagine, is that the WI recount statute provides for "retabulation" by
default (i.e., sending the ballots through the machine again, in the
case of optical scan, etc.) instead of a manual recount:

http://ceimn.org/ceimn-state-recount-laws-searchable-database/states/Wisconsin

It appears that the statute allows the requesting candidate to specify
a hand recount, but has to make the case to a court as to why that
might be necessary.  With the large amount of optical scan used in WI,
any number of experts (like me or others) can make the case that
optical scan systems cannot interpret voter intent in a way that would
comport with WI's HAVA voter intent guidelines and that the slim
margin here is well within this kind of error.

best, Joe

--
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
ACCURATE Postdoctoral Research Associate
UC Berkeley School of Information
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy
http://josephhall.org/

_______________________________________________
election-law mailing list
election-law@mailman.lls.edu
http://mailman.lls.edu/mailman/listinfo/election-law