There are ~two weeks until the “safe harbor” deadline (Dec 13 I believe?) for certifying the electors so that they can be counted in the total electoral college count.
It seems unlikely that the WI recount (especially the “audit” kind that Greens are touting) can be done before Dec 13, considering how long the last recount in WI took.
So - what happens if on Dec 13 Wisconsin is still counting votes? Do the 10 electoral votes get thrown away or do the pre-recount results stand? Or some other outcome?
To follow up, it seems that the time crunch would be even worse with PA and MI - since the same Dec 13th deadline applies, and the recounts there can not be simply requested by paying enough $. AFAIU, to start a recount in those states you need a concerted effort gathering/certifying signatures in every precinct and filing/winning a court case.
So potentially, even if that is navigated successfully, the recount in PA and MI will not even start until at least a week from now if not longer.
If there was some sort of hacking or malfeasance that affected the outcome of this election, we need to know; maybe not for this election, but so it never happens again. Republicans (predominantly) have made a big deal of pushing for voter ID laws so that people will have confidence in the results of our elections. What would give me confidence is to have machines that can’t be hacked, and a paper trail that can be examined and audited if need be. The deadline for that is two years.
Even if the result can’t be changed due to deadlines, we still need to know. And if there is strong evidence of hacking, then the Supreme Court should change the result and award the election to Clinton, or mandate re-votes or an extension of the deadlines to do a proper count.
However, if it just ends up being a normal recount with errors having been caused by fairly normal problems, then the deadlines should apply, even if the recount indicates a Clinton win.
It wasn’t my post, and you’re probably going to find something about it to quibble with, but, in the spirit of “the smallest shred” of evidence, I offer this PILF report (PDF):
As for Trump’s claim (I haven’t read it, but) it wouldn’t surprise me if it was based off this.