Green Party taking bid for election recount in Pennsylvania to federal court

Late Saturday night, Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s campaign said it would pursue a statewide recount in federal court on Monday.

A court case seeking to challenge Donald Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania through a statewide recount is over, according to the attorney who filed the case last week. “We are committed to protecting the civil and voting rights of all Americans”, she said in another tweet.

Both President-elect Donald Trump and Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette have filed suits with the Michigan Court of Appeals for an emergency hearing to try and block the recount.

Earlier in the day, the recount effort appeared to be scuttled by a $1 million bond requirement handed down by the state’s Commonwealth Court.

The Green Party refused to back down in its efforts to initiate a state-wide recount in Pennsylvania.

Recount advocates have said an optical scan would repeat errors, if there were any, and that a hand-reocunt is the only way to ensure the integrity of the election in MI and two other swing states – Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – where the Green Party candidate is seeking recounts.

The recount in Wisconsin began Thursday while Michigan’s recount is slated to begin next week.

The legal actions seeking to block or halt the recounts in three states Trump narrowly won could cause delays that would make them extremely hard or impossible to complete on time.

In practical terms, no recount in Pennsylvania would mean there’s no teeth, even theoretically, behind similar efforts the Green Party has mounted in two other pivotal swing states, Wisconsin and MI. USA security officials have said they believe Russian hackers orchestrated the email hacks, something Russia has denied. And they had been unsuccessful in efforts to get various counties to allow a forensic examination of their election system software.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein drew fewer than 50,000 votes, according to the Associated Press, but nevertheless is leading the recount charge.

Brewer argued it was Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette who warned Michigan’s electoral votes could be at risk if the recount is not completed by December 13.

Mr Trump, who beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov 8 election, has called the recount effort a “scam”.

Despite the fact there’s been no credible evidence so far of election tampering, Stein has maintained in recent interviews – including with CNN – “you can not tell unless you’re actually counting paper votes”.

Abandoning the recount in Pennsylvania means giving up on any slim hope of revising the November 8 presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton. State and county officials did not expect any outstanding uncounted votes to change the outcome of the presidential election in Pennsylvania.

Recounts will still proceed in a handful of Pennsylvania precincts, but it is far from the statewide recount that Ms. Stein initially was hoping for. If this new number is accurate, Trumps lead is at 0.8 percent, down from more than 1 percent.