Demand GOP State Officials & Trump Stop Obstructing the Recounts!

We, the undersigned, demand that state officials in Michigan and Wisconsin, and President-Elect Trump, his campaign mangers and SuperPACS, stop their partisan, obstructionist games and immediately offer full co-operation with the ballot recount efforts. The job of the Secretary of State is to insure fair and honest elections, and the job of the Attorney General is to protect the public interest. The use of these positions to achieve partisan aims, including stalling recounts until after the electoral college has met, or obstructing a full and transparent hand-recount, is an abuse of power and must immediately stop.

We demand that the President-elect call off his SuperPACs’ and campaign managers’ attempts at blocking the recounts through the courts. The job of all Presidential candidates, is to win the election on the merits of their platform, not by cheating or miscount of votes. Such behavior calls into suspicion the prior activities of the GOP candidate, his GOP network, PACs, and staff. If they truly believe that they won this election fair and square, why would they so strenuously object to recounts?

And we further demand, in all jurisdictions, in all recount states (currently FL, MI, PA and WI), hand-recounts, with observers, transparent tabulation, and high-level anti-tamper precautions, and the right to have computer forensics teams examine any and all electronics used in the recounts, until satisfied they are tabulating accurately.

To these ends, we demand, in particular:

In Michigan
That (Republican) Attorney General, Bill Schuette cease his suit seeking to stop the recount. His contentions that, “Michigan voters rejected Stein’s candidacy by massive margins, but her refusal to accept that state-verified result, poses an expensive and risky threat to hard-working taxpayers and abuses the intent of Michigan law…laws that protect the integrity of our elections. It is inexcusable for Stein to put Michigan voters at risk of paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process” does not hold water.

⁃ “Michigan voters rejected Stein’s candidacy by massive margins” — Stein’s team, with the assistance of several election integrity attorneys and statisticians, has evidence of vote manipulation which affected Stein’s vote count. This is a reasonable concern for the Green Party candidate, and legitimately makes her and “aggrieved party” even if a recount would not put her in the oval office. As of October 31st, Stein’s polls indicated that she was up to 5%, in terms of national support, yet during the election, her vote totals were mysteriously down around 1%. 5% of the national vote is an important marker for any political party, as it qualifies a party for federal funding in the next presidential race and also secures ballot access in a number of states. Thus, Stein’s interest in a recount is perfectly legitimate. 

Additionally, any candidate in a race has the right to petition for a recount when the numbers are either very close (in Michigan, Trump exceeded Clinton by under 11,000) or statistically suspect. Ensuring the integrity of our elections is extremely consistent with the Green Party mission and campaign platform. The AG’s office has no right to deny this prerogative to the Green Party candidate on the basis that it would not result in her becoming president. 


⁃ “…her refusal to accept that state-verified result…” — Numerous election integrity experts have warned that electronic voting machines and tabulators are not reliable, whether because of aging, known security vulnerabilities, or the now common practice (known as “fractionalizing”) of building code into the centralized vote tabulators, which allows individuals to pre-set the vote totals to any desired percentage, and then converts votes into fractions to achieve the pre-determined outcome. 

There were also an unprecedentedly high number (87,810 — almost twice that of previous elections) of MI ballots cast with — supposedly — no presidential candidate chosen. This, again, could affect the Green Party’s national support percentage, as well as the outcome of the election. In light of all of these, blindly accepting state-verified results would be extremely foolish.


⁃ “…poses an expensive and risky threat to hard-working taxpayers…” — Risky threat of what, exactly? That voters might find out their votes were manipulated? or that their election officials can’t be trusted? That would be risky indeed — but not for the hard-working tax-payers, who generally want to know that their votes do, in fact, count.



As for cost: the purpose of filing fees is cover the cost of a recount. The Green Party, and the thousands of Americans who donated to the recount fund in an effort to protect democracy, are picking up a huge chunk of the the tab for the recount, not the people of Michigan. In addition to which, ensuring that justice and democracy are served is never a waste of money...