U.S. Election: Jill Stein Files Recount Petition in Wisconsin
Protesters have decided to disrupt the Inauguration Day ceremony on January 20, 2017 when Donald Trump is scheduled to begin his four-year term as President.
By Rakesh Raman
Attorneys on behalf of former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein have electronically filed a recount petition to request a recount of the 2016 presidential election vote in Wisconsin, as part of a bid to demand recounts in the three states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Receipt of the filing from the Wisconsin Elections Commission was confirmed at 3:45 pm. The filing fee for the recount request in Wisconsin is estimated to be approximately $1.1 million.
After opening a fundraising drive on Wednesday, according to Stein, the campaign raised the needed funds for Wisconsin within a matter of hours.
So far, over $5 million has been raised from over 110,000 donors with an average of $45 each. Total costs are expected to be approximately $7 million dollars.
The recount is not expected to change the November 8 election outcome in which Republican candidate Donald J. Trump won by defeating her Democrat rival Hillary Clinton.
“We are standing up for an election system that we can trust; for voting systems that respect and encourage our vote, and make it possible for all of us to exercise our constitutional right to vote,” said Jill Stein.
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“We demand voting systems that are accurate, secure and accountable to the people. This is part of a larger commitment to election reform that our campaign and the Green Party has long stood for,” Stein added.
Meanwhile, protesters have decided to disrupt the Inauguration Day ceremony on January 20, 2017 when Trump is scheduled to begin his four-year term as President.
Stein who had warned that the election may be rigged, has also planned major anti-Trump demonstrations. “We will be building Occupy Inauguration protests in January,” she said.
“I want to acknowledge the very real pain that so many Americans are feeling. We cannot and will not concede to what a Trump presidency represents for people of color, women, immigrants, Muslims, LGBT folks, the poor and working people,” Jill Stein stated.
She has been demanding open debates, an end to voter ID laws and voter suppression, and ranked choice voting – a system just adopted by the state of Maine that allows voters to rank their choices knowing that if their first choice loses, their vote is automatically reassigned to their second choice.
“We are using voting machines that have been proven to be highly vulnerable to hacking. In an election riddled with hacking – of voter databases, the Democratic Party database, and private emails – our voting machines have been an invitation to tampering and malfeasance,” Stein added.
Her recount petition will be transmitted to the county canvassing boards in Wisconsin along with a formal request for an estimate of recount costs and a decision on recount methodology. The recount could begin by the second half of next week.
The Stein / Baraka campaign is looking for volunteers to observe the recount in every county.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a government award-winning journalist and runs free school for deserving children under his NGO – RMN Foundation.
