A federal judge will on Friday consider halting Wisconsin's presidential recount.
President-elect Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by more than 22,000 votes in the state. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein requested the recount to determine if election machines were hacked.
Two pro-Trump groups, the Great America PAC and the Stop Hillary PAC, filed a federal lawsuit Dec. 1, the day the recount began, seeking to stop the process. Judge James Peterson will hear arguments in Madison.
Wisconsin's recount was more than 82 percent complete as of Wednesday. So far Clinton has gained 61 votes.
Stein wants recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania, too. A federal judge in Pennsylvania will hold a hearing Friday on whether that recount can begin.
Meanwhile, two Michigan Supreme Court members who made Trump's list of possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees on Friday removed themselves from consideration of an appeal by Stein to restart the recount there.
The removals by Chief Justice Robert Young and Justice Joan Larsen came two days after a federal judge halted the recount in Michigan that began Monday. The federal judge tied his decision to a state court ruling that found Stein had no legal standing.
Stein then appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court. It still has only a remote chance to succeed before the high court. Three of the five remaining justices were GOP-nominated in their elections. Those five members haven't yet decided whether to take the case.
Trump narrowly defeated Clinton in all three states. Stein received only about 1 percent of the vote in each.
Both Michigan justices said they reluctantly withdrew from the case because they made Trump's list.
"I do so in order that the decision made by my colleagues in this case will not be legitimately challenged by base speculation and groundless innuendo by the partisans in this controversy and beyond,'' Young wrote in his decision to withdraw.
MADISON, WISCONSIN —
