Michigan bill would make Stein pay recount costs

If everything goes according to plan, the almost $5,000 coming from Jill Stein to conduct the recount will cover all of the costs associated with the process.

The State Court of Appeals has encouraged the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to reject Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s recount petition, marking the latest turn in a flurry of legal drama over the recount.

Stein urged the Donald to check her website where it explains this isn’t her first recount rodeo.

A challenge is reviewed on a ballot during a statewide presidential election recount in Waterford Township, Mich., Monday, Dec. 5, 2016. The state elections board also is meeting Wednesday, a day after the MI appeals court ordered it to dismiss Jill Stein’s recount petition.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said no significant issues have been reported after four full days of recounting and any changes between canvass results and recount totals have been due to human error.

The recount should be finished soon in Washington County and Sheboygan County. In his decision to order an immediate recount, Goldsmith was trying to make sure that Michigan’s votes get counted by December 13 – a deadline set out in federal law that guarantees the electors MI certifies for the electoral college will be accepted by Congress. Election officials couldn’t guarantee that the deadline would be met otherwise. Each table will hand count between 2,000-3,000 ballots.

Stein’s lawyers are also requesting federal court intervention for a statewide recount, and that hearing is now set for Friday.

Her attorneys have argued that the electronic voting machines used in Pennsylvania are highly susceptible to computer hacking but have offered no evidence to suggest that any manipulation occurred during the November 8 vote. The citizen-initiated process was unfolding again a backdrop of county election boards reporting their official presidential results to the state.

If Clinton has a chance at making up her margin against Trump, it would likely come out of Wayne County.

The Stein campaign’s federal lawsuit seeks to pull the process out of these nuts-and-bolts weeds and restore the focus on the big-picture-namely, was the vote count accurate or was there any evidence of tampering with it. That was after Stein filed a federal lawsuit Friday to try to force MI to conduct a recount.

The Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld a ruling that U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith issued early Monday morning ordering the recount to proceed at noon that day, and precluding it from stopping until “further order of this court“.

Trump won Wisconsin by about 22,000 votes over Clinton.

A federal lawsuit filed in Philadelphia called for a recount and a forensic examination of the aging electronic voting machines used in most Pennsylvania counties, saying both are necessary to determine whether the election results were manipulated by hackers.

Wayne County has over 1.7 million residents and voted overwhelmingly for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at 95 percent.

President-elect Donald Trump has railed against Stein’s recount challenges in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, accusing her of conducting a scam to fill party coffers. That is still shy of Pennsylvania’s 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount.

Even so, Baxter said it’s unlikely all 392 of the city’s precincts with mismatched numbers will be disqualified from a recount.

Under state law, the precinct may not be recounted if the container isn’t sealed properly and the number on the seal doesn’t match the one recorded in the poll book.