Jill Stein Explains Recounts Are ‘About Ensuring That All Votes Are Counted’

Clinton intervened and supported a lawsuit in Wisconsin filed by Stein seeking a hand recount, and the state Democratic Party solicited volunteers to help watch the ballots being recounted.

In Michigan, a hand recount began on the orders of a federal judge, while recount results in Wisconsin, which started on Thursday, showed little change from those reported on election night.

Trump filed papers last week in Stein’s state court case saying she was seeking a recount without providing any evidence that the state’s electronic voting machines had been hacked.

Speaker after speaker talked about the recount as a civil rights issue, claiming a disproportionate number of votes had been discounted in polls with black, Hispanic and low-income populations.

Green Party leader Jill Stein on Monday vowed to “escalate” her fight for a recount of presidential votes cast in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and MI.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump beat over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,700 votes in MI and 22,000 in Wisconsin, with the recounts not expected to change either outcome. That is still shy of Pennsylvania’s 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount.

“The recounts in the two counties have commenced”. Republicans appealed that ruling Monday. The judge said Stein’s team has shown “a credible threat that the recount, if delayed, would not be completed”, overriding the two-day delay. In Michigan, where Trump was certified the victor only last week, the situation proved to be a bit more complicated: Stein requested a recount there – only to have her request tangled by an objection from the Trump campaign.

Lawyers for the GOP filed a brief notice Monday, hours after a federal judge in Detroit told state officials to get the recount moving to meet a December 13 deadline.

Trump won all three states by narrow margins. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 172,136 votes, while Stein hauled in 51,463 votes.

Late Friday, Stein filed a lawsuit against Michigan’s election officials to speed up the recount bid.

Trump surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win, with 306 electoral votes, and the recount would have to flip the result to Clinton in all three states to change the overall result. Allegheny County’s recount yielded the exact same result as from immediately after the election.

Stein campaign spokeswoman Jordan Brueckner later clarified Saturday that while petitioners withdrew their case for a statewide recount, recounts in hundreds of precincts in some Pennsylvania counties – including Philadelphia, Allegheny and Lehigh – will continue. What many people are wondering is, what will Stein get from strongly supporting this recount? In Allegheny County, a partial recount will move forward Monday while Bucks County’s petitions are expected to go before a judge on Tuesday.