Jill Stein raises money to request recounts in key swing states where Trump won

Green Party nominee Jill Stein is asking her supporters for more than $2 million by next week to request a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three battleground states where "voting anomalies" have been alleged and Donald Trump won.

The campaign did not point out any specific evidence of fraud or irregularity, but cited reported hacks into voter and party databases that it says are "causing many Americans to wonder if our election results are reliable." Prominent cybersecurity experts have recently said that although the chances of the election results being tampered with are slim, a recount would be the best way to ensure that results are valid.

A recount would not change the outcome for Stein, who finished fourth behind the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump. Stein received a little less than 1.4 million votes overall.

Still, there is a tiny chance that the states where she's asking for recounts could possibly flip to Clinton with enough votes. Clinton would need to win all three states to obtain the necessary electoral votes to overcome Trump.

The Clinton campaign has not yet commented on Stein's efforts to obtain a recount. Last week, when two experts asked Clinton to contest the results, the campaign said it wouldn't because there's "no clear proof of fraud" at the ballot box.

The combined cost of requesting all three recounts is expected to surpass $2 million. The filing fee in Wisconsin alone is about $1.1 million, Stein's campaign manager said. The fees in Michigan and Pennsylvania are $500,000 and $600,000, respectively. Wisconsin's deadline to file for a recount is Friday. The other two states' deadlines are next week.

In Michigan, Trump won by 9,500 votes. He won by 22,500 in Wisconsin and 69,700 in Pennsylvania.

Stein won 1.1 percent of the vote in both Wisconsin and Michigan. In Pennsylvania, she received only 0.8 percent of all votes cast.
Stein said the campaign intends to "restore confidence" in the voting system by checking the accuracy of machine-counted vote tallies. The campaign's website is asking Stein's supporters for help in raising the money, opting to go with "the people, and not big-money corporate donors."
"After a divisive and painful presidential race, in which foreign agents hacked into party databases, private email servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable," Stein said. "That's why the unexpected results of the election and reported anomalies need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified."

Stein's campaign manager, David Cobb, led the charge for a recount in Ohio in 2004 when he ran for president as the Green Party's candidate. He said those efforts led to some voting machines becoming banned in California after they were shown to be highly vulnerable. Similar machines, he said, continue to be used in Wisconsin, however.





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