Thursday 24 November 2016

Stein, liberals seek voting hack investigation

Green Party nominee Jill Stein launched a bid Wednesday to seek a recount in three key Rust Belt states as pressure builds among liberals to challenge election results.
The Stein campaign said they needed to raise over $2 million by Friday to pay for recounts. They had reached their goal by early Thursday morning, and have now increased their target to $4.5 million.
    "Over the last 48-72 hours, reports have come in from experts, cyberexperts, who are reporting to us some very troubling news about the possibility of security breaches in voting results across this country," Stein campaign manager David Cobb said in a video posted to her Facebook page Wednesday afternoon.
    Stein and others are seeking an audit and recount of the voting results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, following reports that voting security experts alerted Hillary Clinton's campaign to the possibility of hacks in key counties in those states.
    President-elect Donald Trump claimed Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- wins that helped push him comfortably over the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory -- while Michigan remains too close to call, more than two weeks after Election Day
    But Clinton's lead in the popular vote has continued to grow -- she now has close to 2 million more votes than Trump -- and pressure has been mounting among liberals for an investigation into what happened on Election Day.
    Filmmaker Joss Whedon tweeted late Tuesday, "Demand an audit. Make the call," with a picture of Clinton reading "She Won."
    It's an ironic twist from just a month ago, when Trump was cautioning that the election results would be "rigged" and that he may not accept the outcome.
    Stein, who ran as an independent, third-party candidate in 2012 and 2016, does not stand to benefit personally from the proposed recounts -- she received only 1.1% of the vote in Wisconsin and less than 1% in Pennsylvania.
    She launched her effort after computer scientists reportedly told Clinton campaign officials that the election may have indeed been rigged -- in Trump's favor.
    The group of voting scientists -- including University of Michigan's J. Alex Halderman and voting rights activist John Bonifaz -- alerted the campaign that Clinton's tallies fell 7% shy of expectations in counties that used electronic voting machines.
    Clinton fell about 27,000 votes shy of Trump in Wisconsin and 60,000 in Pennsylvania -- razor thin margins in both states, which together account for 30 Electoral College votes. Votes still are being tallied in Michigan, which CNN has not called for either candidate yet.
    However, famed political statistician Nate Silver was skeptical, tweeting that the voting patterns reportedly questioned by computer scientists "are well-explained by demographics -- not hacking."

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