Hillary Clinton’s campaign will participate in the recount effort in Wisconsin, and possible recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias announced Saturday.
Elias made the announcement in a Medium post. He wrote:
Over the last few days, officials in the Clinton campaign have received hundreds of messages, emails, and calls urging us to do something, anything, to investigate claims that the election results were hacked and altered in a way to disadvantage Secretary Clinton. The concerns have arisen, in particular, with respect to Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — three states that together proved decisive in this presidential election and where the combined margin of victory for Donald Trump was merely 107,000 votes.
The Clinton campaign general counsel said they “have quietly taken a number of steps in the last two weeks to rule in or out any possibility of outside interference in the vote tally in these critical battleground states.”
The steps include lawyers and data scientists going over results to spot anomalies; counseling with experts; investigating every theory that they are able to; looking over recount and audit laws; and staff and monitor the post-election canvasses.
Elias added: “Beyond the post-election audit, Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced Friday that she will exercise her right as a candidate to pursue a recount in the state of Wisconsin. She has indicated plans to also seek recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan.”
Stein has now raised nearly $6 million dollars towards her recount efforts. The deadline for her to file for a recount in Pennsylvania is Monday and in Michigan it is Wednesday.
President-elect Donald Trump won by a little more than 10,000 votes in Michigan, nearly 30,000 votes in Wisconsin, and less than 70,000 in Pennsylvania.
“Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves, but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Elias wrote.
Elias added:
If Jill Stein follows through as she has promised and pursues recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, we will take the same approach in those states as well. We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount. But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.
In reaction to Elias’ announcement, Trump transition senior advisor Kellyanne Conway told Bloomberg, “What a pack of sore losers.
“Rather than adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding and wishing the winner well, they’ve opted to waste millions of dollars and dismiss the democratic process,” Conway added.
Elias said that despite the fact campaign’s investigations have not found manipulation of results, now that a recount is underway they feel an obligation to participate.