Jill Stein Drops Election Recount Efforts In Pennsylvania, Claims Green Party Can’t Afford $1 Million Bond Due Monday
Jill Stein has dropped the election recount efforts in Pennsylvania, claiming that the Green Party can’t afford the $1 million bond that is due by Monday, CBS Pittsburgh reports.
When Jill Stein made the announcement that the Green Party would be crowdfunding to raise funds for an election recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, many people rushed to her website to donate. Within one day, they were able to raise a whopping $4.5 million, doubling the original goal of $2.5 million, Inquisitr reports. However, the next day, Jill Stein raised the goal to $7 million, insisting that the cost was significantly higher than expected.
She says she's "dropping the statewide recount fight" because PA is demanding $1M as bond. She raised $7M. @davidegreenwald pic.twitter.com/QgT4jVjRbk
— Jeff Yang ? (@originalspin) December 4, 2016
Currently, as of Saturday, the goal is now $9.5 million, nearly tripling the original goal amount, with just a hair under $7 million raised. Why does Jill Stein keep raising the goal amount?
The Pennsylvania GOP made a statement regarding the Green Party’s dropped efforts to recount the Pennsylvania election ballots.
“The filing of a discontinuance of the Election Contest by Jill Stein’s petitioners tonight is a recognition that their Election Contest was completely without merit, and meant solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump…Candidate Jill Stein’s allegations created the false allusion that some unidentified foreign government hacked our state’s voting systems when absolutely no such proof existed. We believe that she always knew that she had no such proof.”
As Pennsylvania wraps up the election, President-elect Trump has a 0.8 percent lead over Hillary Clinton with over 6 million votes accounted for. In Pennsylvania, an automatic recount is mandatory should one candidate lead by just 0.5 percent.
According to Heavy, after the second day of the Wisconsin election recount, Donald Trump has gained six additional votes and Clinton has gained three additional votes. The recount, as of now, will continue until December 9, which is the date of the hearing requested by Trump supporters to have the election recount stopped.
The town of Woodland in Wisconsin was reporting a very significant difference to the original election results, showing one candidate at a loss of 203 and the other of 132. However, after the clerk of courts for Sauk County was contacted in regard to this concerning outcome, Clerk of Courts Becky Evert was able to confirm that the spreadsheet was reporting wrong, and the numbers thought to be reported for Woodland was actually for a different village.
Further, she revealed that the recount showed barely no change at all from the original count, stating that the original 206 votes for Trump was increased by one, and Clinton’s 135 votes stayed the same. The village, whose recount results were confused with Woodland’s recount results, showed no change at all.
According to CNBC, Michigan will start its recount next week, regardless of President-elect Donald Trump’s request to have it stopped. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is a Republican, has also attempted to intervene to stop the election recount in Michigan, and his motion is still pending.
Late Thursday, lawmakers in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit against Jill Stein, alleging that she has threatened the state’s ability to certify its electoral votes by the December 13 deadline. The GOP confirmed that the state of Pennsylvania does not allow a recount unless the winning candidate has a 0.5 percent lead or less over the losing candidate.
Pro-Trump groups have attempted to stop the recount in Wisconsin, but the Federal Court rejected their requests, stating that there is no harm in continuing with the recount.
A lawsuit was filed by a Wisconsin voter and two political action committees, claiming that the recount in Wisconsin is a violation of Trump supporters’ constitutional rights.
The Great America PAC and Ronald R. Johnston further claimed that the election recount threatens the due process rights of those who voted for Trump. The lawsuit states concern that time restraint for the Wisconsin election recount could potentially lead to errors.
[Featured Image by Darron Cummings/AP Images]
