President-elect Donald Trump has officially won Michigan's 16 electoral votes, although a recount is possible. It's the last state to officially certify its election results and comes nearly three weeks after Election Day.
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers certified Trump as the winner on Monday. The Republican beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by just two-tenths of a percentage point, 47.6 percent to 47.4 percent. That's just 10,704 more votes than Clinton out of more than 4.5 million cast in the state and is the closest in Michigan history.
Trump's victory in Michigan — the first by a Republican since 1988 — gives the president-elect 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232 electoral votes. The Electoral College vote will take place on Dec. 19. Clinton, however, maintains a more than 2 million vote advantage in the popular vote count.
Green Party nominee Jill Stein received 51,463 votes in Michigan and has signaled she plans to ask the Board of State Canvassers for a recount. She's already successfully petitioned for one in Wisconsin, after raising more than $6.5 million to fund the recounts, and also filed for one in Pennsylvania on Monday.
Stein has until Wednesday to petition for a recount in Michigan. The Detroit News reports that she has hired former Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer as her attorney in that effort.
State Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit News they were preparing to begin a recount on Friday.
"We have not heard directly from Jill Stein's campaign," Thomas said. "We are prepared to move forward at this time if we receive any type of recount petition by Wednesday afternoon of this week."
Stein told NPR's Lakshmi Singh that she wasn't expecting her requests for recounts to change the outcome of the election results, but that she was pushing for them to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.
"In my view, this is not likely at all to change the outcome, and that's what the computer and voting security experts say as well," Stein said Saturday on All Things Considered. "They are not expecting the outcome to change here. But it's the voters who benefit by standing up and saying we deserve a voting system that is secure in which we know our votes are being counted and our votes are being respected."
Clinton's campaign has said it will participate in the recount efforts Stein is spearheading. On Twitter this weekend, Trump repeatedly slammed the possible recount efforts in the Rust Belt states where he upset Clinton. On Sunday evening, he made unfounded claims that widespread voter fraud had cost him a victory in the popular vote as well.
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