Green Party Candidate Jill Stein to File for Vote Recount in 3 Battleground States
Green Party Candidate Jill Stein to File for Vote Recount in 3 Battleground States
- By VERONICA STRACQUALURSI
Nov 24, 2016, 11:30 AM ET
The campaign for Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced Wednesday that it's gunning for a recount in three battleground states -- Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- to address concerns about the election before it is certified.
Stein and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, initially said they hoped to raise over $2.5 million -- the money needed to fund recounts in the three states -- by Friday, the deadline to file in Wisconsin.
And by early Thursday, that initial goal was met: According to the campaign website, more than $2.6 million had been raised, with the goal now listed as $4.5 million.
Stein told CNN on Thursday she "absolutely" intends to file for a recount in Wisconsin.
"What I think all Americans can agree on, and what I consider worthy of working for right now, is creating a voting system that we can trust. There are glaring red flags right now about this voting system," said Stein, who points to unsubstantiated claims that electronic voting machines might have been hacked or manipulated.
On Tuesday, New York Magazine reported that a group of computers scientists and election lawyers urged the Clinton campaign to challenge the election results in the three states Stein is now hoping to challenge, though they found no evidence or proof of tampering or hacking.
"What we are saying is not that hacking or fraud has necessarily taken place. I don't think we have evidence of that. But I think it's only natural and it's good for Americans to be reassured that our votes are counted, especially after such a divisive and bitter election," Stein said on Thursday.
Stein also commented on how quickly her campaign has raised money: "The fact it has basically funded itself overnight reflects the incredible hunger out there among the American people to actually start doing something positive and to start creating an election system that we can believe in."
An updated statement on the website reads, "First recount funded. Two more to go! Congratulations on meeting the recount costs for Wisconsin. Raising money to pay for the first round so quickly is a miraculous feat and a tribute to the power of grassroots organizing.
Now that we have nearly completed funding Wisconsin's recount (which is due on Friday), we can begin to tackle the funding for Michigan's recount (due Monday) and Pennsylvania's recount (due Wednesday)."
Stein received 1 percent of the votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump leads in Michigan by about 10,000 votes and the state certifies the results on Nov. 28. Stein won 1 percent of the national vote, a little over 1 million votes, for president.
However, the campaign said the purpose of filing for a recount is “more than the results of this one election,” and that it’s more so about “protecting our democracy and ensuring” voters can have “confidence in reported results.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/green...ry?id=43746839
Green Party’s Jill Stein Raises Millions for Recount, Source of Money Murky
by WARNER TODD HUSTON
25 Nov 2016
Prior to the Thanksgiving Day holiday, failed Green Party candidate Jill Stein launched a fundraising effort to raise the millions needed to pay for a recount of election results in three of the key states that gave Donald Trump the White House, but the source of these millions of dollars is murky.
Just before the noon deadline on November 25, Stein filed an official petition for a recount in Wisconsin, one of at least three key states that gave Donald Trump a surprise win on Election Day, NBC reported on Friday.
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Wisconsin Elections @WI_Elections
The Commission has received the Stein and Del La Fuente recount petitions. Details and news release posted soon at http://elections.wi.gov .
1:36 PM - 25 Nov 2016
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Stein posted the fundraising message to the Internet after news broke that Clinton campaign chief John Podesta was meeting with supposed election experts who felt there may be evidence that election systems were hacked in the states that gave Trump the victory.
The forlorn wish that Hillary didn’t “really” lose gave hope to a growing list of bitter Hollywood celebrities desperate to find some ray of sunshine to cling to after the drubbing Hillary received in Electoral College votes on November 8.
And as Hollywoodites reveled in the idea, Green Party nominee Jill Stein launched her fundraising effort to try to delegitimize Trump’s win and to raise the millions necessary to pay for recounts in at least three states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The leading proponent of the theory that there was something amiss in the election returns is J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, who insisted that “unprecedented cyberattacks” might have altered electronic election results.
Even as he has no evidence at all that any hacking occurred, Halderman insists that “The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence” by recounting paper ballots.
Aside from the wishful thinking of Hollywood elites and other Hillary fans, Halderman seems to have few supporters in his claim that any hacking occurred. Tech site Cnet.com, for instance, told its readers there “there’s little chance the election was hacked.” And Phillip Bump of The Washington Post reported that there is little chance that anything untoward occurred in the election and that Stein was likely on a “wild goose hunt.”
Finally, the left’s favorite numbers site, FiveThirtyEight.com, insisted that demographics, not hacking gave Trump the win.
But there are other worries over Stein’s sudden raising of the millions of dollars needed to pay for recounts.
Stein launched her effort to raise this money the day before Thanksgiving by asking supporters to help her raise up to $3 million to force a recount in Wisconsin, the state with the closest deadline to the date when she launched her fundraising effort. Shockingly in only a day Stein had raised that three million. And on a holiday at that.
After her initial goal was met, Stein raised the stakes several times and even more millions rolled in. And all still over the Thanksgiving holiday. She is now claiming she needs seven million to fund recounts in all three states, an amount almost three times higher than her initial goal.
Critics wonder where all this money is coming from. How do we know if this money didn’t come from foreign sources? Further, what reporting requirements will Stein be forced to satisfy to prove the source of the cash? And if much of this is foreign money, how does that square with claims by Green Party supporters and Democrats that foreign money and foreign hackers were influencing our election process? If these people are worried about foreign influence, isn’t it exactly the same if foreign money is fueling the recounts?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...-murkyy-murky/
The Mysterious Case Of Jill Stein's Surging Recount Costs
by Tyler Durden
Nov 25, 2016 5:45 PM
Just yesterday we noted that Jill Stein was acting on behalf of Hillary Clinton to raise money for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. As we noted then, we continue to be astonished by the amount of money flowing into the fundraising campaign and would love to see which of Hillary's mega donors have spent the most on the effort...somehow we suspect this isn't just a "grassroots organizing" effort as Stein described it.
So, in less than 1 day, Jill Stein raised over $3mm, which is more than the $2mm needed to force a recount in Wisconsin. While she attributed the accomplishment to "the power of grassroots organizing," we would tend to be a little more skeptical and would love to see exactly where those donations came from. Then again, maybe we're wrong and there really are just that many disaffected snowflakes out there willing to blow their money on an extreme long shot.
But, today a new mystery has emerged in Stein's fundraising efforts. Apparently, the more money she raises the more expensive the recount effort becomes. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine we have the following snapshots from her fundraising page over the past couple of days:
November 24, 2016 at 3:46AM - In the beginning, Stein figured she needed a total of $2.5mm to fund her recount efforts. That figure included $2.2mm for the actual filing fees and presumably another $0.3mm for legal fees and other costs.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20346AM_0.jpg
November 24, 2016 at 1:20PM - Then, just 12 hours later, after the cash just kept flowing in, Stein figured she needed at least another $2mm as her fundraising goal was raised to $4.5mm in total. Of course, the filing fees of $2.2mm didn't change but the "attorney's fees" apparently surged by about 300% and the total costs of the effort skyrocketed to $6-7mm.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20120PM_0.jpg
November 25, 2016 at 6:11AM - Now, just this morning as Stein approaches $5mm in total donations, her overall fundraising goal has surged once again and now stands at $7mm.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...%20611AM_0.jpg
So, with nearly $5mm raised so far, the question is no longer whether recounts will occur in WI, MI and PA but just how much Jill Stein will be able to drain from the pockets of disaffected Hillary supporters to fund her long-shot efforts.
All that said, here is Jill Stein admitting to CNN that she has absolutely no evidence of election hacking....even though she asks that you please keep sending your money anyway.
(video at source link)
And another where she says she would have challenged the election result even if Hillary won...though somehow we suspect she wouldn't have been able to raise quite so much money under that scenario.
(another video at source link)
And finally we leave you with this latest epic rant from PJW on the whole situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-bwY-40QAY
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-1...-recount-costs
