Boxes of ballots wait to be counted at Milwaukee's central count on Election Day 2024. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin was declared the winner of Wisconsin’s Senate race by The Associate Press on Wednesday, earning her third term in the chamber. But her opponent, Republican businessman Eric Hovde, remains within the margin allowed under state law to request a recount. 

Under state law, candidates who lose by a margin of less than 1% are able to request a recount of both the whole state and individual counties. If the margin is less than 0.25%, the state pays for the costs of the recount — which include staff labor, space, transportation, rentals and supplies — but if it’s more than 0.25% the candidate’s campaign pays for those costs. If the recount changes the result of an election, the counties and state are responsible for the costs. 

In 2020, Donald Trump paid $3 million for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties. 

While official results won’t be ready for weeks, unofficial results show Hovde trails Baldwin by 0.9%. 

Wisconsin’s election certification process begins at the local level when  boards of canvass in 1,850 communities meet to validate and certify the results of the election. The local boards of canvass, which consist of the municipal clerk and two appointed members from each community, must meet and certify the local election results no later than 9 a.m. on the first Monday after the election. 

The certification then moves to the county level, where similarly constructed county boards of canvass meet to validate and certify the results. Results from the county boards of canvass must be transmitted to the Wisconsin Elections Commission within 14 days after a general election. This year that deadline falls on Nov. 19. 

At each level, and for the final state certification, the action of the boards of canvass is ministerial, meaning the board has no discretion to not certify a result it doesn’t like. If all the votes were accounted for and legally cast, the board must certify the results. 

After the county boards of canvass are complete and the final county sends its results to the state, a candidate within the recount margin can request a recount. Presidential candidates must file their request within one business day after the final county canvass. Other candidates, including Hovde, have three business days. That gives the Hovde campaign until Nov. 22 to request a full or partial recount. 

When a recount is called, it is the responsibility of the county to hold it. The recount is a public process and in 2020 the recounts were livestreamed. Representatives from the two parties are involved in the process as election inspectors from each recounted  county’s municipalities goes through the ballots again, making sure they were tabulated correctly. Each party is able to challenge individual ballots and each challenge is adjudicated by a bipartisan recount court. 

“It’s a very, very public process that has a lot of involvement from the party representatives and the political parties as well,” WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said at a Wednesday news conference. 

Counties have three days to begin their recount after it is ordered and a recount must be completed by Nov. 30 because the state’s deadline to certify the election results is Dec. 1.