Connecticut Green Party Chairman Mike DeRosa believes it is “in the public’s interest” to have presidential recounts in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission announced Tuesday that it has received the required payment from Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein to start the presidential recount in the state later this week, likely Thursday.
The former Green Party presidential candidate previously submitted a petition for a recount in Wisconsin, and she paid the required $3,499,689 set by the commission via bank wire transfer, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, President-elect Donald Trump won the state with 1,404,000 votes, and Hillary Clinton came in second with 1,381,823 votes — a difference of 22,177 votes. Stein had 31,006 votes.
Trump won Michigan by less than 11,000 votes; he won Pennsylvania by about 60,000 votes.
Stein has said that she was calling for the recount “because of the vulnerability of … voting systems and various indicators of concern,” though she admitted that she does not expect the outcome of the election to change. Clinton’s team said it will support the recount effort.
Trump tweeted that the recount was a “scam” on behalf of the Green Party and later made the unsubstantiated claim that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
His claims have not been independently verified, and election officials from numerous states — including Wisconsin — have criticized Trump’s claim of having won the popular vote nationwide and said that there was no widespread illegal voting in their states.
Stein set up a fundraising page on her website last week, saying that the money raised would be put toward recount efforts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
According to the site, she had raised nearly $6.5 million for the efforts as of Tuesday evening.
Reached Tuesday evening, DeRosa said: “We have a legal right to do this. It’s been proven these machines can be hacked. The bottom line is all Jill Stein is asking for is a complete audit of the election.
“All she is asking for is for another set of eyes,” said DeRosa.
DeRosa said it is in the interest of Stein and the Green Party’s future “self interest” to make sure that everyone who voted for the Green Party presidential candidate in Wisconsin and every other state is counted.
“Trump raised the question as to whether this election was fixed,” said DeRosa. “Jill and the Green Party are just exercising our Constitutional rights.”
“The election system,” DeRosa continued, “has been proven over and over again to be corrupt. I don’t expect a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania to change that – but it should be allowed to go forward to expose the system for the inherent flaws with the hopes that it can be fixed for future elections.”
In Connecticut, Stein got close to 23,000 votes, or about 1.4 percent. Clinton won the state, easily — with close to 55 percent of the popular vote. Trump got nearly 41 percent of the vote. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson won 3 percent, or nearly 49,000 votes.
Patrick Gallahue, spokesman for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, said all official election results from Connecticut’s 169 towns are due to the state by today.
Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticized Trump’s claim that “millions of people voted illegally’’ and also criticized Trump’s allegations that there was “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.”
Sanders said: “The Republicans will likely move aggressively to expand their current voter suppression efforts. When Trump talks his disgraceful and unfounded nonsense about millions of people voting illegally, he is sending a very clear signal that the Republicans will move to make it harder for people of color, the elderly, immigrants, young people and poor people to participate in elections.”
