After being ordered by a court to post a $1 million payment to start recount efforts in Pennsylvania, Green Party candidate Jill Stein abruptly dropped that legal bid on Saturday night, as she denounced the demand that her supporters put up money to pay for a recount, while President-Elect Trump dismissed it as a fundraising scam.
"It's really pretty mind boggling," Stein said in a Facebook video chat, hours after her lawyers said her supporters "were of ordinary means," and would not pay that fee.
"This is astounding," Stein argued, as she labeled the court requirement for a $1 million payment, "unbelievable," arguing the votes of her supporters were being "disrespected" by the Pennsylvania legal system.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
In her Saturday evening video chat on Facebook , Stein defended her efforts to track down "irregularities" and "red flags" about the 2016 vote in a number of states, arguing an overall recount is still needed.
Instead of a statewide recount in Pennsylvania, Stein said her backers would concentrate on auditing the results in individual precincts around that state, as she promised more details on her efforts in an announcement slated for Monday, which also may include a suit in federal court over a full recount in the Keystone State.
Stein though vowed to push on with her overall recount efforts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as she accused the Trump campaign of using "anti-democratic" legal efforts to stop those vote reviews.
"Donald Trump and his allies and his legal team have made moves to stop the recount in all three states," Stein said of her campaign's efforts.
Stein has offered no specific evidence of vote fraud or errors in any of those states; she argues that outdated voting machines which are prone to hacking and tampering have undermined a proper vote tally.
As for Trump, he labeled Stein's effort a "scam."
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