Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein’s attempts to recount the election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are now over.
Although Stein only secured a complete recount in Wisconsin, she is claiming to have won a victory for voters by exposing weaknesses in the voting system.
In fact, Stein’s greatest service may have been to validate the Wisconsin results ― and thus demonstrate that voting irregularities did not tip the election in Donald Trump’s favor.
“I’d like to think that the public appreciates that as a result of the examinations that occurred, that the results were not corrupted in any way to create inaccurate results,” said Ned Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. “The Wisconsin recount demonstrates that.”
Wisconsin completed a 10-day recount financed by the Stein campaign on Monday, resulting in an increase in Trump’s lead over Hillary Clinton from 22,617 to 22,748 votes.
“For a state with a 20,000-vote margin to generate a change of 100 votes as a result of a recount is consistent with standard recount procedure,” Foley said.
By contrast, Michigan never completed its recount and Pennsylvania never even began one. The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear the Stein campaign’s appeal of a lower court order halting the recount, permanently ending hopes for a statewide recount there.
And on Monday, a federal judge also denied Stein’s request for a statewide recount and an investigation of vote tampering in Pennsylvania....
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