Jason Stein

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Madison — Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin was reaffirmed Monday following a presidential recount that showed him defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 22,000 votes.

Clerks around Wisconsin rushed to recount nearly 3 million ballots ahead of a federal deadline on Tuesday, but in the end little changed, with Trump adding just 131 votes to his margin.

"We all knew from the beginning that the outcome wouldn't change. We said that from day one," said Wisconsin Election Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen, a Democrat.

The commission finishes with a day to spare before a federal deadline for the state to finish and ensure that Wisconsin's 10 votes will be counted in the electoral college, which decides the presidency.

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein paid $3.5 million to force the Wisconsin recount and has tried unsuccessfully to get statewide recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where courts have stopped them. Wisconsin’s recount uncovered no massive problems and no hacking of any Wisconsin election device or computer as Stein and her supporters had suggested, without evidence, that there might have been.

"None of that has been found," Don Millis, a Republican on the commission, said of the alleged hacking.

Trump gained more votes

In the end, Clinton gained 713 votes over her previous total, but Trump gained 844.

The cost to Stein and her supporters was thousands of dollars for every vote changed.

The Stein campaign didn't give final numbers on how much she has raised or spent on the recount efforts, saying that her campaign would hold a call with reporters Tuesday to discuss them further.

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"This recount was never about changing the outcome; it was about validating the vote and restoring confidence in our voting system to Americans across the country who have doubts," Stein said in a statement.

In that statement, however, Stein continued to raise questions about the election and the recount, saying that she was disappointed that only some Wisconsin counties recounted their ballots by hand, while others, like Milwaukee, used machines.

Neil Albrecht, executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, has said that a hand recount was not practical for his county in the tight timeframe for the recount. But many of the ballots in the city were recounted using a different set of machines that are more suited to high volumes than the ones used in polling places on election night.

These machines, some of which were rented, provided a similar check on the machines used in the original count in much the way that a hand recount would have, Albrecht said. All of the machines used in the recount also had to be tested publicly before it began.

Albrecht said he hoped the recount put to rest some of the wild claims being made about the reliability of election results.

"There's some very reckless rhetoric being used that has the potential to have long-term consequences," he said.

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Republican lawmakers and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker have said they may change state law going forward so that candidates like Stein, who got only a small fraction of the vote, can't request a recount for an election where they themselves can't win.

Thomsen said there was no need for that since Stein paid for the recount and Wisconsin residents got the benefits of an in-depth audit of the election system. Millis, his fellow commissioner, said he personally would like to see the law changed, calling Stein's request "an abuse of the system."

In Pennsylvania Monday, a federal judge rejected a Green Party-backed request to conduct a recount of paper ballots in the presidential election there.

The rejection by U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond on Monday is the latest roadblock to a Pennsylvania recount, which has been happening in some local jurisdictions there but not on a statewide basis.

A federal judge has also halted Michigan's recount.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.