Even though Jill Stein has herself admitted that there’s no evidence voting machines in Pennsylvania were hacked, her campaign is slamming President-elect Donald Trump for intervening in her quest to have presidential votes recounted in three states.
In a lengthy statement released today by her campaign, Stein and her team said Trump is “aggressively working to obstruct and weaken recounts demanded by voters” and announced a Monday morning press conference outside Trump Tower in New York. Earlier today, the Trump campaign — in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Republican party and Trump’s electors — filed in Commonwealth Court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Stein. That lawsuit is likely the only way a statewide recount can take place in Pennsylvania.
Stein is also working to have recounts of the presidential vote done in Michigan and Wisconsin. All three states were won by President-elect Trump, whose campaign has filed in some way to stop recounts in all three states.
In a separate message to supporters, Stein’s campaign wrote: “It seems that the President-elect, who continues to rail about illegal votes, does not want the voters to see the actual totals.”
“Lawyers are expensive and Trump knows it,” the campaign continued. “He is trying to build a wall between the people and free and transparent elections; won’t you please be a brick of resistance. People in action together and in common cause can penetrate the mightiest walls.”
Trump’s campaign claims a recount in Pennsylvania would cost taxpayers millions of dollars while Stein’s Green Party campaign hasn’t presented any evidence to show probable cause that any sort of voter fraud occurred. In Pennsylvania, a judge would have to find probable cause for such fraud in order to grant a statewide recount, which could cost millions of dollars.
Candidates petitioning for a statewide recount must show probable cause that significant voter fraud occurred in some way. The PA GOP and the Trump campaign contend she hasn’t proven that and won’t prove that, writing in their most recent filing that “petitioners cannot meet these standards by merely alleging a belief that illegality may have occurred… petitioners have done nothing more than put forward a theory — a mere guess — about how illegality may have occurred.”
Stein’s campaign and its supporters continue to criticize Pennsylvania’s voting infrastructure, two-thirds of which involves touch-screen voting machines they say are susceptible to hacking. State officials have repeatedly said their systems are secure.
“America’s voting machines and optical scanners are prone to errors and susceptible to outside manipulation,” J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan professor who wrote this viral Medium piece, said in a statement. “That’s precisely why we need this recount – to examine the physical evidence, to look under the hood.”
Stein’s camp is claiming Trump is taking advantage of Pennsylvania’s complicated recount system which doesn’t allow candidates to simply file for a recount. Rather, they must file a lawsuit and convince a judge that there’s evidence impropriety.
“Pennsylvania has the messiest recount process of the three states,” the campaign wrote today, “and Donald Trump has tried to use its decentralized and bureaucratic election system to his advantage.”
Added Stein herself: “American voters want a recount – and they deserve a recount.”
Trump won Pennsylvania by about 46,000 votes, or 0.8 percent. In Pennsylvania, a recount is mandatory when a candidate wins by 0.5 percent or less.
