On Saturday night it was announced that the Green Party had dropped its recount efforts in Pennsylvania.
CBS News in Pittsburgh reported:
Green Party Drops Statewide Pennsylvania RecountGreen Party-backed voters dropped a court case Saturday night that had sought to force a statewide recount of Pennsylvania’s Nov. 8 presidential election, won by Republican Donald Trump, in what Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein had framed as an effort to explore whether voting machines and systems had been hacked and the election result manipulated.The decision came two days before a court hearing was scheduled in the case. Saturday’s court filing to withdraw the case said the Green Party-backed voters who filed the case “are regular citizens of ordinary means” and cannot afford the $1 million bond ordered by the court by 5 p.m. Monday. However, Green Party-backed efforts to force recounts and analyze election software in scattered precincts were continuing.
You might think that would be the end of this clown show, but no. Stein has vowed to keep going:
That’s just super, Jill.
What she means by that is that the challenge is headed to a federal court. Newsworks reports:
Stein drops first challenge to presidential vote in Pennsylvania, moving to federal courtAttorneys for Green Party candidate Jill Stein Saturday suddenly withdrew their statewide challenge to Pennsylvania’s presidential vote, citing a $1 million bond required by the court to proceed. They say they’ll take the case to federal court Monday.”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 Saturday night. “This is yet another sign that Pennsylvania’s antiquated election law is stacked against voters.”..Make no mistake — the Stein campaign will continue to fight for a statewide recount in Pennsylvania. We are committed to this fight to protect the civil and voting rights of all Americans,” Abady said. “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. 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.”The campaign filed a formal contest to the presidential result in Commonwealth Court last Monday, the first ever in Pennsylvania.It was an uphill battle from the beginning. The campaign asked the court to order a full recount and a forensic audit of the state’s voting software, arguing cyber-hacking could have altered the results. But the campaign’s filings offered no evidence that any tampering had occurred in Pennsylvania.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air offers this response:
Yeah, well, good luck with that. The Stein campaign has to prove that asking a fourth-place fringe candidate to post a significant bond for covering the cost of a statewide recount after getting less than one percent of the vote is not just unreasonable but unconstitutional.The state has the authority to set the terms of recounts, so a federal judge will be reluctant to order a state to conduct one in general, but perhaps especially so for a plaintiff thus situated. Plus, with the safe-harbor date of the Electoral College fast approaching, the court is going to give serious consideration to the risks of ordering a state into a situation which runs a large risk of disenfranchising all of its voters in a presidential election.
Stein says “the people deserve answers,” but it’s an answer to a question that only she’s asking.
This is about political theater, fundraising, and an attempt to de-legitimize Trump.
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