recount 2016
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see dan backer</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see blue wall</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cheddar cheese mafia</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sorta whimsical, see WISC 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prompted a bit by cronon sussing out alec
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/why-many-2020-swing-states-are-on-track-for-another-massive-recount-crisis/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/why-many-2020-swing-states-are-on-track-for-another-massive-recount-crisis/</font></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>If the 2020 presidential election hinges on recounts in the closest battleground states, there could be a crisis even greater than the 2000 election where the U.S. Supreme Court ended a Florida recount in its infamous Bush v. Gore ruling.</b></font></p><div class="p1_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That’s because the laws and timetables governing recounts in many swing states differ widely and aren’t necessarily geared toward transparent granular counting</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—and that’s apart from President Trump’s </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/09/666018707/trump-scott-spread-claims-of-voter-fraud-as-florida-race-narrows" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">habit</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of attacking election outcomes he doesn’t like by claiming they were stolen.</span></font></p><div class="p2_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I see what the states have put out there. They have not proven realistic,” said <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/person/matthew-weil/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Matthew Weil</a>, senior associate director of the Democracy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, speaking of the policies and legal landscape that unfold after election night. The BPC is soon expected to issue a report on the topic. “It would be very helpful to really look at what a realistic and rational policy would be, and we can work toward that goal.”</font></p><div class="p3_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Should presidential recounts occur, it appears that history will not repeat <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/140254/inside-story-trump-clinton-stein-presidential-election-recount" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">what happened in 2016</a>—when courts shut down two of the three recounts filed by the Green Party: in Michigan and Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin. But the chances of voters seeing a convincing process may prove as frustrating as 2016.</font></p><div class="p4_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“By conventional standards, the 2016 presidential recount was close, but not by recount standards,</b>” said Chris Sautter, a nationally known lawyer specializing in post–Election Day procedures. “Nonetheless, a truly accurate recount to fully verify the results was not possible in any of the three states because laws in those states didn’t permit meaningful recounts, and because even had the laws permitted proper recounts, most of Pennsylvania and a few counties in Wisconsin did not use election equipment that produced paper records of each vote.”</font></p><div class="p5_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In 2016, three purple states tipped the Electoral College and made Trump president.</b> Millions of Americans were stunned. <b>The Green Party’s presidential nominee, Jill Stein, stepped into the “what happened?” void, raising <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/stein-ends-recount-bid-but-says-it-revealed-flaws-in-voting-system.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$7.3 million</a> and filing for recounts in the states with the three closest margins: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.</b></font></p><div class="p6_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The recounts <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/140254/inside-story-trump-clinton-stein-presidential-election-recount" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">accomplished little</a> of what recounts are supposed to do—validate or update the earlier results. They were blocked in Michigan, stopped in Pennsylvania after barely beginning, and, in Wisconsin, where they were completed after revealing inconsistencies in some vote-counting machinery</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Trump emerged with several hundred more votes. Instead of </span><a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/resolution-election-disputes/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">resolving ambiguities and bringing legitimacy</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to the results, the narrative was dogged by suspicions of hacked machinery, slash-and-burn political rhetoric, contentious court battles and rulings, resistance to re-examining count votes by some local officials and wide media ridicule. These factors did little to satisfy Americans seeking answers.</span></font></p><div class="p7_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Since 2016, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have updated some laws or counting protocols in response to the recount, but not all of those revisions are intended to open up the process</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Looking more widely, most possible 2020 swing states each have different post–Election Day rules, counting timetables and deadlines, some of which are hard to meet without squeezing in a thorough recount.</span></font></p><div class="p8_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With the possible exception of <a href="https://custom.statenet.com/public/resources.cgi?id=ID:bill:FL2019000H881&ciq=ncsl15&client_md=91e3e3c476e9493ac54279a09a9e65d4&mode=current_text" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Florida</a>, most of the several dozen <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2ckbyzh" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">recount-related bills</a> now in legislatures were not from likely presidential battleground states, heading toward passage, nor involved big changes. Or, as in Arizona, there’s a proposed <a href="https://custom.statenet.com/public/resources.cgi?id=ID:bill:AZ2019000S1484&ciq=ncsl15&client_md=7f7520342ccf7e1fc1fe1b2a6d8ba925&mode=current_text" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bill</a> to make it more expensive to file for a recount if it’s not automatic—a deterrent to recounting.</font></p><div class="p9_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many voters do not realize that elections don’t end on election night, where the reported totals are unofficial and incomplete. After all of the ballots are collected and machinery is packed up, a process called the canvass begins. This involves elected officials and civil servants, typically at the county level, compiling and reconciling the totals from their various voting options (early, at precincts, etc.) and still-arriving mailed-in votes. This process typically concludes seven or 10 days later with local certification of winners. State certification follows soon afterward.</font></p><div class="p10_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the top contenders are less than 1 percent apart (this slightly varies state-by-state), a recount will be triggered. Depending on the margins, the government or candidates will pay for this. Recounts also follow differing rules depending on the state. Some, like in Florida, only count problematic ballots—with no votes or too many votes. (Election audits are generally not part of this <a href="https://www.nass.org/resources/2018-election-information/Canvassing-Timeframes-and-Recount-Thresholds/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">phase</a>, but occur after the election is officially over.)</font></p><div class="p11_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To choose the president, states have to finish this process before the Electoral College meets about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/us/politics/the-electoral-college-meets-monday-heres-what-to-expect.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">six weeks</a> later. But post-election <a href="https://www.nass.org/resources/2018-election-information/Canvassing-Timeframes-and-Recount-Thresholds" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">timetables</a> vary. In Michigan, the process can take no more than 40 days. In Ohio, it’s 31 days. In Wisconsin, 24 days. In Nevada and Pennsylvania, it’s 21 days. In Florida, it’s 14 days—although there is <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/7066/BillText/Filed/PDF" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">legislation</a> to add five days. These timelines were set years ago, before large numbers of voters started voting by mail, which takes time to process, and Congress created the provisional ballot safeguard (for people not on voter lists), which also must be verified before counting.</font></p><div class="p12_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What can follow close contests can appear confusing and not inspire confidence. Before three simultaneous statewide recounts were triggered in Florida last fall, including for U.S. senator and for governor, the results kept changing as mail-in ballots came in. In Broward County, Republicans rallied outside of county offices and <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2018/11/republican-operative-goons-are-trying-pull-another-brooks-brothers-riot-floridas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">loudly accused</a> the election workers inside of rigging the results. In Broward County, Palm Beach County and elsewhere, officials didn’t finish in time, which meant under law that the earlier unofficial results stood. Michigan has a <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yyw7w432" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">similar law</a> on the books.</font></p><div class="p13_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s very weird, from a government-administration perspective, to be putting out unofficial totals, and then people are seeing them shift,” Weil said. “We now see a lot of concern—i.e., ‘Is something going on if these numbers are shifting?’ Obviously, that’s a part of the process, but I do think we need to evaluate some of those reporting policies.”</font></p><div class="p14_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 2016 Recounts</font></strong></p><div class="p15_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What have 2016’s closest swing states done since that year’s presidential recounts?</font></p><div class="p16_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To recap, several weeks after Election Day, the Greens filed for three recounts: In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Michigan</a>, where the results found Donald Trump led by roughly 11,000 votes; in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Wisconsin</a>, where he led by 23,000 votes; and in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Pennsylvania</a>, by 44,000 votes.</font></p><div class="p17_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What followed were political brawls. In Michigan, there was fierce pushback by the GOP, where a red-run state government, and courts at the state and federal levels <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/michigan-election-recount/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">shut down</a>the process. Later studies by Michigan academics argued that Hillary Clinton would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/06/were-2016-vote-counts-in-michigan-and-wisconsin-hacked-we-double-checked/?utm_term=.1ea7830bf9f4" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">likely have won</a> the state in a recount (but not the election) if half of Detroit’s ballots weren’t <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/05/recount-unrecountable/95007392//" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">disqualified</a>. A <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y59cndjx" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">1954 law</a> disqualified ballots if the number of voters signing in at precincts did not match the reported vote total, or, as was seen in 2016, ballot storage boxes were banged up or damaged—as signs of possible tampering. Frustrations in Michigan’s governing circles with the city’s elections have kept the law on the books, retired state election officials have said.</font></p><div class="p18_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pennsylvania saw differently dissatisfying results in 2016. A full recount never occurred, as many counties had finished the canvass before the Greens filed—including a mountain of petitions submitted at the local level. The state’s courts, a silent blue executive branch and a <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/140254/inside-story-trump-clinton-stein-presidential-election-recount" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal court</a> eventually shut it down. Late last fall, Greens <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jillstein/pages/29165/attachments/original/1543446617/Stein.Letter_to_the_Court_with_Settlement_Agreementdkt_10811-28-18%2800356071x9CCC2%29.pdf?1543446617" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">settled</a> a suit with the state where it pledged to use all paper-ballots for 2020.</font></p><div class="p19_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Only Wisconsin finished its presidential recount, where Trump won 400 more votes, and counties, much to the Greens’ consternation, used different recounting methods—some scanning ballots, others counting by hand.</font></p><div class="p20_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After 2016, the American Law Institute has convened a panel of election scholars to publish <a href="https://www.ali.org/publications/show/resolution-election-disputes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">an update</a> of what it considers the best principles and legislative language for states to resolve “ballot-counting disputes.” Their detailed report delves into the canvass, recounts and a final stage, contesting results. Its principles are clear: avoid ambiguity in the counting rules and procedures to maximize the legitimacy of the election. That means embracing a transparent process and exercising a “duty of non-partisanship” as a referee.</font></p><div class="p21_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Should presidential recounts recur in these states in 2020, there will be some differences. To start, two of these states won’t let marginal contenders file. <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/30/gov-scott-walkwisconsin-tightens-recount-rules-after-jill-stein-forced-retally-2016-presidential-vot/911484001/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Wisconsin</a>and <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/03/michigan-recount-election-law/578461002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Michigan</a> have passed laws to block filings by candidates who do not stand a chance at winning—“a good faith belief that they would have had a reasonable chance of winning,” said Shawn Starkey, communication director for Michigan’s Department of State.</font></p><div class="p22_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That policy was aimed at the next proverbial Stein, as were other changes to Michigan law. Depending on the number of votes separating the leading candidate and a petitioner, the per-precinct filing fees can range from $25 to $250, Starkey said. (Last fall, the state had 4,797 precincts, a number that fluctuates as local populations change.) Michigan also changed some deadlines in its canvass process after 2016. It gave counties one more day before starting that process after Election Day (by 9 a.m. on Thursday, not by 1 p.m. on Wednesday), but then required an “expedited” process if the presidential candidate’s lead was less than 25,000 votes statewide, he said. Counties also must report “any out-of-balance precincts that weren’t reconciled during the canvass.”</font></p><div class="p23_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y23y2rzs" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">1950s-era law</a> that disqualified Detroit’s ballots—and would let the first unofficial results stand if a recount wasn’t finished—remains on the books, Starkey said. (In early March, a <a href="https://custom.statenet.com/public/resources.cgi?id=ID:bill:MI2019000S164&ciq=ncsl15&client_md=2642121aa6a3db3db117fc3a96d2ec0d&mode=current_text" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bill</a> was introduced to amend that law; but it was sitting in a committee.) With regard to auditing the voting machinery or first tabulations, the state currently does not start those until “after the canvass process and official results certification,” he said. In other words, Michigan has not made recounting an easier or more open process.</font></p><div class="p24_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wisconsin and Pennsylvania</font></strong></p><div class="p25_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wisconsin’s GOP-run government also blocked future Green-style recounts after 2016.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> B<b>ut its state election agency, the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC), has since taken steps to make results more trustworthy before officially declaring winners. </b>Before the November 2018 election, the WEC doubled the number of wards—the most local election jurisdiction—required to double check their preliminary results, “including at least one in each of the 72 counties,” said WEC spokesman Reid Magney. “Wisconsin has several different makes and models of voting equipment in use, and each type will be audited at least five times.”</span></font></p><div class="p26_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those audits, which involved manually reviewing and counting votes, looked at 135,712 ballots in November, a <a href="https://elections.wi.gov/sites/electionsuat.wi.gov/files/2019-03/Open%20Session%20Commission%20Meeting%20Materials%20AMENDED%203.11.2019.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">March 11 report</a> submitted to the WEC said, noting that “was the largest audit of its kind undertaken in the State of Wisconsin.” The report said that the “only noted issue arose” when an older touch-screen electronic voting system used in rural counties saw jams of printers that were supposed to produce a paper record.</font></p><div class="p27_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The audit results indicated there were no identifiable bugs, errors, or failure of the tabulation voting equipment,” the report said. “While there were discrepancies identified during the audit, they were the result of human error that occurred as part of the process conducting the audit. Additionally, the results of the audit did not identify programming errors that impacted how the audited voting equipment counted votes.”</font></p><div class="p28_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The WEC could not order every county to participate in its pre-certification audits, said Magney. But nine counties took part, he said, including some of the biggest population centers. If Wisconsin held the key to who would prevail in 2020’s presidential election, it’s possible an absence of consistent statewide protocols could become an issue in post-election litigation. But Wisconsin has made the process more accountable than what existed in 2016, even though marginal candidates can no longer file for a recount.</font></p><div class="p29_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Pennsylvania, the prospective presidential 2020 recount landscape is not yet clear. Last November, the state <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jillstein/pages/29165/attachments/original/1543446617/Stein.Letter_to_the_Court_with_Settlement_Agreementdkt_10811-28-18%2800356071x9CCC2%29.pdf?1543446617" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">settled</a> a lawsuit with the Greens where it pledged to replace all of its voting machinery before 2020’s election with paper ballot–based voting systems. (There’s an open question if electronic ballot-marking devices, which some counties are acquiring and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/01/election-vulnerable-voting-machines-1198780" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">critics say</a> can be hacked, would violate that settlement. The Greens’ attorney did not return a request for comment.) That settlement also requires the state to implement pre-certification audits by 2021; however, that would be after the next presidential election.</font></p><div class="p30_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Stepping back, Pennsylvania is undergoing a makeover of its voting systems and rules</b>. In July 2018, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, announced the state was <a href="https://www.governor.pa.gov/governor-wolf-announces-interagency-workgroup-strengthen-security-pennsylvania-votes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">stepping up</a> cybersecurity surrounding election systems. The current legislative session has <a href="https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pennsylvania-legislature-election-reform-20190129-story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">numerous bills</a> introduced to open up the voting process, primarily by joining other states that use <a href="https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20190&cosponId=28056" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">voting by mail</a> and vote centers. There are no recount-related bills, however.</font></p><div class="p31_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Compared to the latest policies in Wisconsin, the state’s recount laws are fairly strict. Pennsylvania’s recounts are <a href="https://www.nass.org/resources/2018-election-information/Canvassing-Timeframes-and-Recount-Thresholds" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">triggered</a> if the leading candidate’s margin is less than 0.5 percent, and it has to take place by the third Wednesday after Election Day and completed by the next Tuesday—a tight 21-day window. A state elections agency spokeswoman said it was too soon to say what changes might be coming before 2020.</font></p><div class="p32_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a little too early for us to predict what changes are coming in Pennsylvania in 2020,” Ellen Lyon, deputy director of the office of communications and press for its Department of State, said. “Several state legislators have election reform bills out there, in addition to the governor’s plan, but they haven’t been acted on yet.”</font></p><div class="p33_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other Swing States</font></strong></p><div class="p34_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Perhaps most notable is what may unfold in Florida, where several bills are moving that would make any recount, including for president, more thorough and transparent.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> There’s </span><a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/7066/BillText/Filed/PDF" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">legislation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to extend its recounting period, because last November several counties could not finish their recounts in time. There is also </span><a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/582/BillText/Filed/PDF" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">legislation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to allow the most granular vote auditing system now available to be used in recounts. That approach rescans every paper ballot and then compares those results to earlier tabulations. Should this bill pass and be signed into law, Florida would be in a class by itself among swing states for recounts.</span></font></p><div class="p35_40" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But stepping back from that prospect, the big picture surrounding the nation’s vote verification landscape is uneven, as the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Weil said. In state after state, regulations and timetables can be out of sync with the pragmatic details of conducting modern elections. The BPC has convened <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/press-release/bpc-launches-three-new-task-forces-to-improve-voting-experience/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">three task forces</a> to improve the “voting experience,” with one focused on vote counting. Weil said the goal is making elections more trustworthy, not making do with today’s status quo.</font></p><div class="p36_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There are a lot of people out there helping election officials work within the system that exists in their state, and fewer looking at the policies that are clearly prescribing what their options are—and maybe those options are not the best options,” Weil said. “I think we need to make sure that the laws line up to ensure that election officials are fully successful, because at this point in a lot of states, either they are pushing up against the laws, or they have resigned themselves to the fact that their laws are never going to allow them to do what makes the voting experience better.”</font></p><div class="p37_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will the vote counting landscape be better in 2020 if there are presidential recounts? As Kevin Kennedy, Wisconsin’s retired state election director, said, “Unless it’s a very close election, nobody’s paying attention.” But if there is a contested outcome, by the time the canvassing and recounting begins, it would be too late to improve the process.</font></p><div class="p38_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/voting-booth/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Voting Booth</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the American Prospect, and many others.</font></span></p><div class="p39_40" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/voting-booth/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Voting Booth</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">code red jonathan simon update bk 5th ed</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/CODE-RED-Computerized-Election-American/dp/1500319856" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.amazon.com/CODE-RED-Computerized-Election-American/dp/1500319856</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ossoff recount sued for, not to contest b/c deadline passed, but to check; sertver degaussed, then moved to fed, next day 2 backups wiped; </font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">election defence alliance org</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">penn electronic; wi paper, in rect said he could not order manner of recount (with voting machine, just push same tab button again) so in wi 1/2? cty just did rescan?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-da1193c1-a5b6-7fa2-aaa7-b7d45ca00aa0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">But deeper than that: <b>WI </b></span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-weight="font-weight" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><b>Cheddar Cheese mafia: </b></span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"> Eric O'Keefe (Wisconsin, Club for Growth) ran the Sam Adams Alliance that built the Tea party, despite longstanding a vigorous denials by Kochs). WII Reince Priebus and paul Ryan are old pals, and though trump attacked GOP leadership, they caved. Gov Scott Walker has been a major implementer of the Koch agenda, anti-union, anti-environment, privatization of all, including schools and prisons). The Kochs had to intervene massively to stop the recall, and it is still a mystery about why Walker abruptly bailed from 2016 race, though will probably involve the John Doe dark money; however, Kochs have been investing in WI supreme court for quite some time).</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><b>Walker is an ally of neighboring MI Gov Snyder, </b>and have implemented similar programs. The ultimate fruit of free-marketeering is the lead poisoning of poor black kids, which will permanently lead to cognitive impairment. These two are part of the larger <b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ALEC-Koch-alypse </b>(Four Horsemen: privatization, financialization, militarization, and criminalization). They have funded quite a few midwestern governors, including<b> Kasich and Pence. </b>Some “failed up” and revolving door in Bush admin eg Homeland, but<b> Brownback </b>was perhaps most faithful implementer of Koch Libertarianism program and crashed his state <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">(hired ALEC's Laffer to sell tax plan)</span>.</span></p><div><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap">
</span></div></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">2016</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> United States presidential election in </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Michigan</b> was won by Donald <b>Trump </b>on November 8, <b>2016</b> with </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">47.50% of the total votes, over Hillary Clinton's 47.27%</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. All of <b>Michigan</b>'s 16 Electoral Votes were assigned to <b>Trump</b>, contributing to his victory in the <b>2016</b> United States presidential election.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">----</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">unions?</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Wisconsin,2016">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Wisconsin,2016</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It was corrected in the official vote totals. As it stands before the recount began, </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> was reported to have won </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wisconsin</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> by a narrow </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">margin</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> —</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 1,405,284 votes to Clinton's 1,382,536. <b>Wisconsin</b> was also the tipping point state of the <b>2016</b> election.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Republican</a></b><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump" title="Donald Trump" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Donald Trump</a></b><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence" title="Mike Pence" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Mike Pence</a></b><b>1,405,284</b><b>47.22%</b><b>10</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party(United_States)" title="Democratic Party (United States)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Democratic</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton" title="Hillary Clinton" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Hillary Clinton</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Kaine" title="Tim Kaine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Tim Kaine</a>1,382,53646.45%0</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party(United_States)" title="Libertarian Party (United States)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Libertarian</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson" title="Gary Johnson" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Gary Johnson</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Weld" class="mw-redirect" title="William Weld" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">William Weld</a>106,6743.58%0</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States" title="Green Party of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Green</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stein" title="Jill Stein" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Jill Stein</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajamu_Baraka" title="Ajamu Baraka" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Ajamu Baraka</a>31,0721.04%0</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Party(United_States)" title="Constitution Party (United States)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Constitution</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Castle" title="Darrell Castle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Darrell Castle</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bradley(politician)" title="Scott Bradley (politician)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Scott Bradley</a>12,1620.41%0<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_politician" title="Independent politician" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Independent</a> (write-in votes)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_McMullin" title="Evan McMullin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Evan McMullin</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_McMullin_presidential_campaign,2016" title="Evan McMullin presidential campaign, 2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Nathan Johnson</a>11,8550.40%0<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_World_Party" title="Workers World Party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Workers World</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Moorehead" title="Monica Moorehead" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Monica Moorehead</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_Lilly" title="Lamont Lilly" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Lamont Lilly</a>1,7700.06%0<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_politician" title="Independent politician" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Independent</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_De_La_Fuente" title="Rocky De La Fuente" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Rocky De La Fuente</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Steinberg_(lawyer)" title="Michael Steinberg (lawyer)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Michael Steinberg</a>1,5020.05%0Others / Write-In Votes</font><center><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-</font></center><center><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-</font></center><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">23,2950.78%0<b>Totals</b><b>2,976,150</b><b>100.00%</b><b>10</b>Voter turnout (Voting age population)Source: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/results/2016/fall-general" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" c="C" fxml="Fxml" version="version" d="D" encoding="encoding" utf-8="UTF-8" standalone="standalone" no="no" f="F" e="E" csvg="Csvg" http="http" a="A" fwww.w3.org="Fwww.w3.org" f2000="F2000" fsvg="Fsvg" width="width" height="height" cpath="Cpath" fill="fill" fff="fff" stroke="stroke" m1.5="M1.5" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" m5.765="M5.765" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" m9.995="M9.995" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="xmlns" xmlns:data="data">Wisconsin Elections Commission</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...Three-weeks-plus after Election Day, there are still more votes to count in California than were cast in each of nine states and D.C. Most of the votes that have been (slowly, laboriously) counted in the state have been votes for Hillary Clinton, giving her a 4.1 million-vote lead in that state that's powering her 2.5 million-vote lead nationally. It takes Donald Trump's margins in the seven states where he saw the biggest vote advantages to make up Clinton's lead in California alone. (All of these figures thanks to Cook Political's <a href="https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/796701082080739328" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(213, 213, 213); zoom: 1; margin-bottom: 18px; line-height: 1.8em;">Dave Wasserman</a>.)</font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, of course, none of this matters. All that matters is that Trump got more electoral college votes, thanks to having won more states. In many cases, those wins were much more narrow than Clinton's, which also helps power the gap between the electoral vote and the popular one. Trump won 18 states by fewer than 250,000 votes; Clinton, 13.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The most important states, though, were <b>Michigan </b><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">10,704</b><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">, Pennsylvania (</b><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">46,765 )</b><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> and Wisconsin (</b><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">22,177)</b></span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Trump won those states by 0.2, 0.7 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively — and by 10,704, 46,765 and 22,177 votes</span>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Those three wins gave him 46 electoral votes;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> if Clinton had done one point better in each state, she'd have won the electoral vote, too.</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">much coverage det free press</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/12/10/what-if-michigan-held-key-presidential-election/95142214/">http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/12/10/what-if-michigan-held-key-presidential-election/95142214/</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">...In Michigan's recount, scores of precincts, primarily in Detroit, but also in other places, could not be recounted because the number of ballots didn't match the number of voters in poll books. One precinct from Gibraltar couldn't be recounted because the ballot container was sealed with duct tape after the zipper broke and a replacement container couldn't be located.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite those problems, others point out the strengths of Michigan's system, including paper ballots and optical-scan readers. Figures released by the Secretary of State's Office late Friday show that after recounting about 2.1 million ballots, the final margin between Trump, who carried Michigan, and Clinton, changed by 102 votes in Clinton's favor.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because the recount was halted in court, the certified results, a 10,704 vote win for Trump, stands as Michigan's official result.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Oakland County, which recounted more than 521,000 ballots, the net difference in the presidential race was a gain of 34 votes for Trump. That's less than 1/100th of 1%.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"What it tells us is that our optical scan works, and it's accurate and it's always good to have a paper ballot as a backup," said director of elections Joe Rozell.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 22px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">..</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/">http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-votes-detroits-precincts/95363314/</a></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have</b> during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">DETROIT NEWS</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Detroit’s voting irregularities spur state audit</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Detroit precincts are among those that couldn’t be counted during a statewide presidential recount that began last week and ended Friday following a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Democrat Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly prevailed in Detroit and Wayne County. But Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Overall, state records show 10.6 percent of the precincts in the 22 counties that began<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the retabulation process couldn’t be recounted because of state law that bars recounts for unbalanced precincts or ones with broken seals.</span></b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldn’t recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal,” said Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>State officials are planning to examine about 20 Detroit precincts where ballot boxes opened during the recount had fewer ballots than poll workers had recorded on Election Day.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“We’re assuming there were (human) errors, and we will have discussions with Detroit election officials and staff in addition to reviewing the ballots,” Thomas said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Detroit News last week was first to report that more than half of Detroit would be ineligible for the recount because of the irregularities.</b> The results were based on county reports obtained by The News.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The new report, compiled by Wayne County elections officials, sheds light on the extent of the problems and shows a systematic tendency toward counting more votes than the previous Wayne County report, which didn’t specify if precincts had over-counted or under-counted ballots.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Republican state senators last week called for an investigation in Wayne County, including one precinct where a Detroit ballot box contained only 50 of the 306 ballots listed in a poll book, according to an observer for Trump.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">City officials have told state officials that ballots in that precinct were never taken out of a locked bin below the voting machine tabulator on Election Day, said Secretary of State spokesman Fred Woodhams.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“That’s what we’ve been told, and we’ll be wanting to verify it,” Woodhams said. “At any rate, this should not have happened.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The state is not calling the audit an investigation, “but based on what we find, it could lead to more,” he said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">City Clerk Janice Winfrey and Elections Director Daniel Baxter did not return multiple messages.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Audit ‘good place to start’</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">State Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, called the planned audit “a good place to start” that could help determine whether Detroit elections workers “followed the correct procedures” or “fraudulent procedures” on Election Day.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Whether a poll book mismatch suggests there are too few or too many ballots in any given precinct, “it’s concerning,” said Colbeck, who spearheaded the request for probe. “It’s supposed to reconcile to zero.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It’s unclear how many votes were added in Detroit. That’s because county officials have not tabulated how much the ballots were off in precincts with discrepancies of at least five votes.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Of the data available, though, machines tallied at least 388 more ballots, according to a Detroit News analysis of the records. That’s 0.16 percent of the 248,000 ballots cast in the city that voted for Clinton 95 percent to 3 percent over Trump.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Haroutunian said she didn’t know what to make of the trend toward over-counting because there was no explanation from Detroit poll workers. The city had another 34 precincts that were out of balance, but they included explanations for the discrepancies.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Under state law, those precincts could be recounted because there were explanations. The law states that original results stand in precincts that can’t be recounted.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Washtenaw County Elections Director Ed Golembiewski said discrepancies tend to “even themselves out” — there are usually about as many precincts whose machines report more votes than fewer votes. But he said the large number of precincts with over-votes in Detroit isn’t necessarily significant.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“It’s usually human error,” Golembiewski said. “I have not seen anyone intentionally try to run an extra ballot. You aren’t going to rig an election three ballots at a time. You’re going to need a far more systematic and thorough approach than a couple of people here and there stuffing three extra ballots.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In Washtenaw County, 23 of 150 precincts, about 15 percent, could not be recounted. Other counties with high percentages of unrecountable precincts include Branch (27 percent); Cass (24 percent); Wayne (24 percent) and Ionia (24 percent).</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Who’s responsible for errors?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Last week, Baxter told The News 87 optical scanners broke on Election Day. He said many jammed when voters tried repeatedly to stuff single ballots into scanners, which can result in erroneous vote counts if poll workers don’t adjust counters.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Former Detroit mayoral candidate Tom Barrow, who has challenged the city’s elections process for years, said blaming workers is a cop-out. According to city protocol, all precincts are supposed to be balanced when the ballot boxes are sealed at the end of the night, he said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The city is responsible. Janice Winfrey is responsible,” Barrow said. “This didn’t happen because of crazy, dyslexic senior citizens who are working as poll workers, like they want to portray this. That’s people who are trying to deny responsibility.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He has asserted on social media that Winfrey cost Clinton the election in Michigan</span>.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Others said there could be benign explanations.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Detroit’s ballot was two pages because it included dozens of candidates for the local Board of Education. The number of pages can cause machines to jam and lead them to count too many ballots, said Genesee County Clerk John Gleason.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Usually, if there’s a problem, it tends to be more voters than votes,” he said. “But when we’re off, we should be very, very close, like one ballot.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Genesee County, which like Wayne County is heavily Democratic, couldn’t recount 14 of the 142 precincts</b> it had started before the court scuttled the process. Gleason took office in 2013 and said he had to “ride herd” over city clerks to ensure they reconciled precincts.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Nothing is perfect. You have paper. You have humidity. You have people hanging onto ballots,” Gleason said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“So there’s reasons, but there should be no excuses.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">jkurth@detroitnews.com</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">joosting@detroitnews.com</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/7-election-integrity-and-cyber-security-experts-say-stopping-michigan-recount-corrupt-exercise-power</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump campaign and Michigan Republicans won a series of legal rulings Wednesday that may be the beginning of the end of the presidential recount in the state where Hillary Clinton stood the best chance of overturning Donald Trump's election night victory.</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the Greens said they would file appeals, Green presidential candidate Jill Stein’s attempt to verify the vote in the three states giving Donald Trump an Electoral College majority faced a rough road Wednesday. Opposition from Republican court challenges and local election officials mounted during the day and a federal court judge lifted a previous order stopping Michigan officials from shutting down the recount that started only two days before.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"We are deeply disappointed in [U.S. District Court] Judge Goldsmith's ruling today, which gives deference to partisan state judges in Michigan who are attempting to block the state's recount simply because of the person who made the request,</b> without regard for the integrity of Michigan's electoral system," Stein's lawyers said in a statement, vowing to appeal to the state Supreme Court to challenge a Michigan election board's 3-1 vote earlier in the day to cancel the recount.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The history of this country is one where federal courts step in to protect the constitutional voting rights of all Americans, especially when they are under attack in the states," Stein's lawyers said. "Well today, they are under brutal attack. Backed by Michigan Republicans, Donald Trump—who himself has repeatedly alleged widespread voter fraud and a 'rigged election'—suddenly sees no need for a routine verification of the democratic process in Michigan. His efforts to suppress the vote count is a stunning about-face, even by Trump's own standards."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Stein campaign's Michigan recount is now hanging by the thinnest of threads, as its last resort, Michigan's Supreme Court, has two justices on it who Trump has named as possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees. The Stein campaign filed motions Tuesday to remove those justices from hearing their appeal.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Make no mistake, we are not backing down from this fight—a fight to protect the hard-fought, hard-won civil and voting rights of all Americans," Stein's lawyers said. "Our campaign will seek immediate relief in Michigan's Supreme Court to ensure the recount that is already underway in all Michigan counties continues. With so many irregularities in Michigan — including more than 75,000 under-votes, many in urban areas, and widespread carelessness, and perhaps interference, with preserving ballots — there is a real possibility the rights of voters in Michigan may have been suppressed during this election. We need this recount to ensure the fairness, accuracy and integrity of the vote."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A House of Cards</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Goldsmith's ruling capped a day in which difficulties were unfolding in the three recount states—Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But it was Michigan where the recount effort seemed most imperiled, showing just how hard it is to recount presidential ballots and bring trust-inspiring transparency to the vote count process.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Earlier Wednesday, Stein's campaign was emphasizing that all Michigan counties had begun their recounts. But throughout most of the day, state election officials, the Stein campaign, the Trump campaign and its allies like Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette waited for a federal district court judge to rule on whether the recount could continue and whether he would lift an order barring the state from stopping the recount</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The state board that launched the recount Monday voted Wednesday to <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/07/board-canvassers-recesses-recount-hearing-till-1-pm/95084944/" style="text-decoration: none;">reverse</a> its decision, meaning state election officials may seek to suspend the recount while the case goes before its high court.</b>
<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But Wednesday's legal jousting was not the only resistance to verifying Michigan’s vote.</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Clinton lost Michigan by under 11,000 votes. Across the state—notably in southeast counties where Hillary Clinton won by a two-to-one margin in communities of color—local election officials were disqualifying an astounding number of precincts from being recounted.</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> This is the region with the greatest potential for a Clinton upset, because it is where</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> tens of thousands of scanned ballots did not record a presidential vote.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In Detroit, for example, hundreds of precincts—59 percent—were disqualified from the recount because officials found sloppy record-keeping</b> such as precinct-level paper ballot totals not matching the number of voters who signed poll books, or the boxes storing paper ballots had damaged seals.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thus, while the Stein campaign is fighting the recount in court, the reality on the ground is</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style=""> local election officials, backed by the state election director,</b> were refusing to look at ballots that would verify if Trump was the winner and could begin to confirm that many people, 75,000 statewide, didn’t vote for president—or plausibly, didn’t have their ink-marked paper ballots correctly scanned.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attorneys working with election integrity activists independent of the Stein campaign identified sections in Michigan election law that explicitly said “canvassers”—the term for the local officials overseeing the recounts—have the “power and authority” to examine all of the ballots, and can decide whether or not to proceed when discrepancies surface. Nobody has filed any lawsuits over that standard, because of the higher stakes litigation. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nonetheless, Michigan is not just showing that the Trump campaign and its allies can stop a legitimate democratic process, but it is also spotlighting how local election officials are turning away from investigating perhaps the most easily solvable question: the presidential undervotes. Hand recounts would reveal whether voters marked their ballots.</b>
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<strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wisconsin</strong></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, which has been recounting ballots since last week and is 70 percent complete, it does not appear a Clinton upset is in the making</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. However, election integrity activists discovered what could be a major pathway for electronically altering the reported vote count—which the Stein campaign has cited in its legal pleadings as a rationale for verifying the vote and needs to be investigated. <b>They submitted affidavits by more than a half-dozen top computer scientists saying this is a legitimate concern.</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Milwaukee and other counties, the activists found that one of the most widely used ballot scanners in the state has a built-in cellular phone modem to wirelessly submit precinct vote totals to a countywide tabulator. That raises the question of whether the electronically transmitted totals match the paper ballots. In many locales, that question is going unanswered. That's because key suburban counties where the activists want to take a closer look are not recounting paper ballots by hand. They are rescanning them, after Stein lost a state court legal fight over hand recounts. Each county can decide how to recount and two-thirds are doing hand counts.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thus, it looks like Wisconsin’s recount is not going to reverse Trump’s 22,000-vote lead. On Tuesday, the Associated Press said he had widened his margin by 146 votes, with 23 of the state’s 72 counties finishing the recount. In those completed counties, Trump gained 105 votes and Clinton lost 41. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Friday, a federal court will hear a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> suit filed by pro-Trump super PACs to stop the recount.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
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<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Wisconsin and Michigan, in differing ways and above and beyond the court fights, many election officials are dodging hand counts to verify the computer-produced vote count totals. Moreover, when activists spotlight a issue worthy of investigation, such as the celluar connectivity of Wisconsin's voting machines, their concerns are not being addressed or incorporated. </span>
<strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pennsylvania</strong></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That same frustrating scenario was also evident in Pennsylvania Wednesday, when a <b>Philadelphia court rejected Stein’s motion to conduct a full “forensic analysis</b> of voting machines and their software.” That would attempt to see if precinct vote totals had been electronically altered en route to countywide tabulators.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Elsewhere across the state, there are other obstacles. Many counties are refusing to act on citizen-initiated recount petitions, </b>a process in which any three voters from a single precinct can file a notarized request and pay a nominal fee to launch a recount. Organizer Aquene Fairchild said that <b>1,300 petitions had been submitted statewide in 375 precincts, but “at least 50 were turned away when they tried to file.”</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That pattern of obstructionism prompted the Stein campaign to file a federal lawsuit Monday, calling the state’s election system “a national disgrace” and demanding a full statewide recount. A hearing will be held Friday. Meanwhile, the state’s Republican Party and Trump campaign warned that the lawsuit threatens Pennsylvania's ability to certify its election before the<b> December 13 federal deadline, which starts the Electoral College clock. The Electoral College meets December 19.</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Elsewhere in the state, the closer activists looked at the reported vote counts, the more serious questions emerged. Academics not working for the Stein campaign said their analysis of the latest vote counts in 10 Philly-area counties found, as of Sunday night, showed that Clinton was ahead by 6.2 percent on the paper ballots—mostly absentee and overseas military votes—while Trump led by 6.8 percent on the paperless voting machinery. It is an open question whether that disparity will be officially explored.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump's lead over Clinton is now about 44,000 out of more than 6 million votes cast in Pennsylvania. That is still just short of Pennsylvania's 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount. Meanwhile, the state's top consitutional officers,<b> including the Secretary of the Commonwealth overseeing any recount, are all Democrats who have not supported the Greens.</b></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As of Wednesday, the Stein campaign raised more than $7 million from individual contributions averaging under $50 to pursue the recount</b>. Their investment may not change the presidential results, but they are spotlighting exactly why Americans do not have the answers they deserve to explain how Trump apparently won and where his base resides.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ref http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/07/board-canvassers-recesses-recount-hearing-till-1-pm/95084944/</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/03/politics/jill-stein-drops-pennsylvania-recount/index.html</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Jill Stein says she'll 'escalate' Pennsylvania recount case after earlier plans to drop it</b></font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Caroline Kenny, CNN</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Updated 10:13 AM ET, Sun December 4, 2016 </font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein escalates Pennsylvania recount case</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein speaks during a 2016 Presidential Election Forum, hosted by Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) and Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace August 12, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. </font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A man hangs a sign reminding people to vote in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Now Playing</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein responds to Trump's comments</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hillary Clinton is honored at a Children's Defense Fund event for her contributions and dedication to child advocacy at the Newseum in in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, November 16, 2016. It's Secretary Clinton's first public event since conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump. </font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein raises millions for recount</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein: We're standing up for everyday people</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why should Sanders' supporters vote for Jill Stein?</font></div>
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</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein makes her case for president</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein speaks during a 2016 Presidential Election Forum, hosted by Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) and Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace August 12, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. </font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A man hangs a sign reminding people to vote in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein responds to Trump's comments</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hillary Clinton is honored at a Children's Defense Fund event for her contributions and dedication to child advocacy at the Newseum in in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, November 16, 2016. It's Secretary Clinton's first public event since conceding the presidential election to Donald Trump. </font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein: I find Clinton's track record troubling</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein: We're standing up for everyday people</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Story highlights</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jill Stein has spearheaded a recount effort in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Green Party presidential nominee promised to say Monday her plans going forward</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington (CNN)Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein said early Sunday she would "escalate" her statewide recount efforts in Pennsylvania through a federal lawsuit, after announcing she would drop it.</font></div>
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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein on Saturday cited a major cost placed on voters due to a state court ruling that says the voters requesting the recount must pay a $1 million bond. But shortly after midnight Sunday Stein tweeted about plans to continue on the recount bid.</font>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"On Monday, I will escalate #Recount2016 in PA and file to demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds. The people deserve answers," she wrote.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Follow</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Dr. Jill Stein ? @DrJillStein</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday, I will escalate #Recount2016 in PA and file to demand a statewide recount on constitutional grounds. The people deserve answers.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8:56 PM - 3 Dec 2016</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> 1,425 1,425 Retweets 2,541 2,541 likes</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A statement from the Stein campaign shortly after said it will file a lawsuit in federal court Monday seeking a statewide recount.</font></div>
<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Over the past several days, it has become clear that the barriers to verifying the vote in Pennsylvania are so pervasive and that the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention," said Jonathan Abady, lead counsel to the Stein recount efforts. "As a result, on Monday the Stein campaign will escalate our campaign in Pennsylvania and file for emergency relief in federal court, demanding a statewide recount on constitutional grounds."</font></span></div>
<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein earlier in the weekend had taken aim at procedural hurdles at the state level.</font></span></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The judge's outrageous demand that voters pay such an exorbitant figure is a shameful, unacceptable barrier to democratic participation," Stein said in a statement. "This is yet another sign that Pennsylvania's antiquated election law is stacked against voters. By demanding a $1 million bond from voters yesterday, the court made clear it has no interest in giving a fair hearing to these voters' legitimate concerns over the accuracy, security and fairness of an election tainted by suspicion."</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein campaign spokeswoman Jordan Brueckner later clarified Saturday that <b>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. The campaign is also still pushing for forensic audits of voting machine software in the state.</b></font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein tweeted that the expense of the recount was caused by elected leaders.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"#Recount2016 is so expensive because of elected leaders who have refused to invest in a 21st-century voting system."</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Follow</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Dr. Jill Stein ? @DrJillStein</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">#Recount2016 is so expensive because of elected leaders who have refused to invest in a 21st-century voting system.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:00 PM - 3 Dec 2016</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> 458 458 Retweets 1,002 1,002 likes</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This is about responding to the American voters who are standing up and saying, 'We deserve an election system that we can trust, and that is accurate, that is secure against hacking, against human error, against machine error, and in which the votes are being counted.' Because right now, it's not clear that all the votes are being counted," Stein said on "Fox News Sunday."</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein denied that the more than $6.5 million she's raised for the recount -- far more than the nearly $900,000 she collected for her 2012 presidential campaign and the $2.5 million she raised in 2016 as the Green Party nominee -- is a list-building fundraising scheme.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This money is going strictly into a segregated account which can only be spent on the recount. So, this money is entirely, will be completely used, and we'll be lucky if we can cover the costs," she said.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein has spearheaded a recount effort in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- three battleground states where Donald Trump narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pennsylvania is not the only state where recount efforts are running into opposition. Michigan's attorney general, a Republican, filed a suit to stop a recount in his state Friday and Trump supporters in Wisconsin this week have also tried to stop the recount in progress there.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED: Michigan attorney general files lawsuit to stop recount</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein raised nearly $7 million to fund the recount efforts, following news that security experts alerted Clinton's campaign to the possibility of hacks in key counties in those states.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the fact there's been no credible evidence so far of election tampering, Stein has maintained in recent interviews -- including with CNN -- "you cannot tell unless you're actually counting paper votes."</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Clinton's campaign has sent its lawyers to participate in the recount process to "ensure that it is fair to all sides," Marc Elias, the campaign's counsel, </b>wrote in a post on Medium earlier this week.</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has dismissed the recount efforts as a "scam."</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LANSING, Mich. — The Latest on presidential recount efforts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (all times local):</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:35 p.m.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Green Party candidate Jill Stein is asking a federal judge to order Michigan to quickly start a recount of presidential votes.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s another legal action in the dispute over whether Michigan will take a second look at ballots from the Nov. 8 election. The recount could start Wednesday because officials say state law requires a break of at least two business days.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein’s attorney, Mark Brewer, filed a lawsuit Friday. He says the law violates the U.S. Constitution. He says the delay means the recount might not be finished by a Dec. 13 deadline.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> A worker looks over results during a statewide presidential election recount Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Milwaukee. The first candidate-driven statewide recount of a presidential election in 16 years began Thursday in Wisconsin, a state that Donald Trump won by less than a percentage point over Hillary Clinton after polls long predicted a Clinton victory. (Morry Gash/Associated Press)</font></div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier Friday, the Michigan election board deadlocked on President-elect Donald Trump’s request to reject a recount. That means a recount will occur unless courts step in. Lawsuits have been filed to stop it.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:15 p.m.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit to stop an election recount in Michigan that is scheduled to begin next week.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The filing Friday comes after the state elections board deadlocked on his request to deny the recount, which means it will likely start Wednesday unless the courts intervene.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump lawyers say in the lawsuit that Green Party candidate Jill Stein wants the state to “expend tens of millions of dollars on a wild goose chase that even Stein cannot identify.”</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 10,700 votes.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan’s Republican attorney general also is asking state courts to stop the recount.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein says her goal is not to change the election result but to ensure “the integrity and accuracy of the vote.”</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 p.m.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal court in Wisconsin on Friday rejected an attempt by pro-Donald Trump groups to stop a recount of the state’s presidential vote, saying there was no harm in allowing it to continue.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two pro-Trump political action committees and a Wisconsin voter on Thursday filed a lawsuit and a request for a temporary restraining order seeking to stop the recount, arguing that it was an unconstitutional violation of the Constitutional rights of people who had voted for Trump.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But U.S. District Judge James Peterson on Friday denied the motion to temporarily halt the recount, saying there would be no harm in allowing it to proceed while the state prepares arguments in defense.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peterson scheduled a hearing for Dec. 9 on the underlying lawsuit.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4:30 p.m.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President-elect Donald Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania is shrinking as more counties finish tallying their votes.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An updated count Friday by state election officials shows Trump’s lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton has shrunk to 49,000, from 71,000.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That puts Trump’s lead at 0.8 percent, down from over 1 percent, out of 6 million votes cast. It’s still shy of Pennsylvania’s 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount. Trump’s Pennsylvania victory was crucial to his capturing the White House.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The update comes as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein spearheads recount efforts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump narrowly beat Clinton in all three states.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania dropped as counties wrapped up the counting of overseas ballots and settled provisional ballot challenges.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some counties are also fielding precinct recount requests, and final counts are outstanding in some places, including Philadelphia.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12:40 p.m.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan’s elections board has deadlocked on President-elect Donald Trump’s request to prevent a recount, which means it will start next week unless the courts intervene.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two Republicans voted Friday to prevent the recount, while two Democrats said it should proceed. A state spokesman says the statewide recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein will begin Tuesday or Wednesday barring a court order.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to intervene and stop the recount. That motion is pending.</font></div>
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Wisconsin recount is underway, though his supporters have filed a federal lawsuit trying to stop in. In Pennsylvania, Trump is asking a court to dismiss Stein’s recount request...</font></div>
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<p style=" box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stein has also requested recounts in two other states Trump narrowly won, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Wisconsin recount is underway.</font>
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9:50 a.m.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump have filed a federal lawsuit trying to stop Wisconsin’s ongoing presidential election recount.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit and request for a temporary restraining order was filed late Thursday in federal court in Madison. It was filed by the Great America PAC, the Stop Hillary PAC and Wisconsin voter Ronald R. Johnson.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit contends that the recount that started Thursday threatens the due process rights of Johnson and others who voted for Trump. Trump won Wisconsin and the recount was requested by Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit also argues that errors are likely in the recount, as election officials are rushing to meet a Dec. 13 deadline.</font>
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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10 a.m.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan’s attorney general has asked the state Supreme Court to block a potential recount of the state’s presidential vote, which was won by his fellow Republican, Donald Trump.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attorney General Bill Schuette, like the Trump campaign, argues that Green Party candidate Jill Stein cannot seek the recount because she was not “aggrieved” to the point at which a potential miscounting of votes could have cost her the election. She garnered 1 percent of Michigan’s vote.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The filing Friday delayed the start of a state election board meeting to consider Trump’s request to block the hand recount of all 4.8 million ballots cast in Michigan. Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 10,700 votes.</font></p>
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