Jill Stein Plans to File for Recount in Wisconsin
UPDATE: The Green Party will announce today they are seeking a recount of the presidential election in Wisconsin. A news conference is scheduled for 12:15 PM at the Milwaukee City Hall to announce their intentions to file today with the Wisconsin Elections Commission for a recount of the presidential votes in Wisconsin. In a news release, the Stein/Baraka Green Party Campaign says it has raised the $1.1 million state fee needed to initiate a recount. The campaign also intends to seek recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two other states where the Green Party believes there is a need to verify machine counted vote totals. Wisconsin is the first state where the Green Party is filing for a recount.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has already started an audit of electronic voting equipment as required by state law. According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission's website, a random audit of electronic voting equipment is required after every general election to ensure the equipment meets the federal standard of only 1 error in every 500,000 ballots, a standard that Wisconsin has never failed to meet since the audits began in 2006.
CBS 58—Former Green Party Candidate Jill Stein will request a recount of the results in the presidential race in Wisconsin.
Donald Trump won Wisconsin by about one percentage point, or roughly 27,000 votes. Stein finished a distant fourth in the state, and says she’s contesting the results because of the process, not the winning candidate.
“There were lots of hacks taking place around this election,” Stein said. “Hacks in to voter databases, hacks in to party databases, individual email accounts”
Stein believes voting machines could also be hacked, though she acknowledges there is no indication that happened.
“I don't think we have evidence of that,” Stein said. “But I think it's only natural and it's good for Americans to be reassured that our votes are counted.”
Talk of a recount began when computer scientists at the University of Michigan urged Hillary Clinton to challenge results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“As it turns out the claims against Wisconsin are really generated by statistics,” said University of Milwaukee professor, Mordecai Lee. “These professors ran some data and they said there are these isolated outliers. Why did this area have so many fewer democratic votes than another area? I think that's not necessarily proof that something hinkey is going on.”
Still Lee says recounts are a common part of the democratic process.
“For somebody from afar to say, ‘hey 27,000 isn't a lot, lets double check and be sure,’ I think that's understandable,” Lee said.
Stein is funding the recounts in the three states through an online fundraiser-- which already raised more than $4 million of the $4.5 million dollar. Recount requests must be filed by Friday, a deadline Stein says she will meet.