After being denied a statewide recount by courts in Pennsylvania, Jill Stein of the Green Party filed an appeal and was scheduled for a hearing on Monday, but now it appears she is backing down from that appeal due to the cost of the effort.
CBS Pittsburgh reports that the Green party withdrew their recount case Saturday night only days before their court hearing was to take place.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP/KDKA) – Green 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.Stein planned to make an announcement about the Pennsylvania recount Monday outside the Trump Tower in New York.
So after raising nearly $7 million dollars for her recount efforts, Jill Stein is claiming that the $1 million dollar bond demanded by the court is too steep for “regular citizens”? Or is that Stein and the Green Party realized that the recounts would be more expensive and require more legal fees in Wisconsin and Michigan than first expected, which would mean there wouldn’t be as much money for the party to pocket when this was all over with.
Regardless the reason, county clerks and voters in the state of Pennsylvania have a reason to celebrate after this news, since they will no longer have to work overtime or volunteer to witness massive recount operations. Here is a copy of the court document outlining the withdraw of the Green Party’s court challenge that was set to take place on Monday.
The final tallies in Pennsylvania may be far from settled, however, as earlier today it was reported that over 22,000 absentee ballots have been recorded in the state that were in Hillary’s favor, decreasing Trump’s lead from 71,000 to 49,000.
The Pennsylvania GOP released a statement on the recount challenge withdraw on Saturday evening:
The filing of a discontinuance of the Election Contest by Jill Stein’s petitioners tonight is a recognition that their Election Contest was completely without merit, and meant solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump…Candidate Jill Stein’s allegations created the false allusion that some unidentified foreign government hacked our state’s voting systems when absolutely no such proof existed. We believe that she always knew that she had no such proof.
