Clinton being pushed to seek vote recount in 3 states
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hillary Clinton
NEW YORK » A group of election lawyers and data experts has asked Hillary Clinton’s campaign to call for a recount of the vote totals in three battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — to ensure that a cyberattack was not committed to manipulate the totals.
There is no evidence that the results were hacked or that electronic voting machines were compromised. The Clinton campaign on Wednesday did not respond to a request for comment as to whether it would petition for a recount before the three states’ fast-approaching deadlines to ask for one.
President-elect Donald Trump won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by razor-thin margins and has a small lead in Michigan. All three states had been reliably Democratic in recent presidential elections.
The group, led by voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, contacted the Clinton campaign this week. That call, which was first reported by New York Magazine, raised the possibility that Clinton may have received fewer votes than expected in some counties that rely on electronic voting machines.
But Halderman, in an article posted on Medium on Wednesday, stressed that the group has no evidence of a cyberattack or voting irregularities. He urged that a recount be ordered just to eliminate the possibility.
“The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” Halderman wrote.
Recounts, which are often costly and time-intensive efforts, would likely only be initiated if the Clinton camp pushed for one, though Wisconsin independently announced that it would conduct an audit of its vote. A call for a recount, particularly coming on the heels of a fiercely contested and sharply partisan election, would likely be cheered by Democrats but denounced by Republicans eager to focus on governing.
A request to the Trump transition team for comment was not immediately returned.
Trump’s campaign had long believed that his message of economic populism would resonate in the Rust Belt. He frequently campaigned in Pennsylvania and made a late push in both Wisconsin and Michigan, successfully turning out white working-class voters whom pollsters may have missed.
Many pre-election polls showed Clinton with slight leads. While advocating for the recounts, Halderman writes that “the most likely explanation” for Trump’s surprise win “is that the polls were systematically wrong.”
The deadlines for petitioning for a recount in all three states are in the coming days, with Wisconsin’s on Friday. Green Party candidate Jill Stein announced a fundraising effort Wednesday to pay for such recounts.
The focal point of any possible electoral cyberattack presumably would have been electronic voting machines that, whether or not they are connected to the internet, could be infected with malware that could change vote totals. But many of those machines produce a paper record of the vote that could be checked to see if the vote tabulations are accurate.
Pennsylvania is considered one of the states most susceptible to hacking because 96 percent of its voting machines have no paper trail. Wisconsin is far less vulnerable because it uses electronic machines with voter-verifiable paper trails in most counties. Michigan is considered the safest of the three because it uses paper ballots.
Officials in the three states confirmed that no recounts have been ordered. A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department says it is not tallying the number of voting complaints to determine whether federal action is warranted.
Many election experts have called for routine post-election audits designed to boost public confidence in vote outcomes, by guarding against both tampering and natural vote-counting mistakes. These could involve spot-checks of the voting records and ballots, typically in randomly selected precincts, to make sure that votes were accurately recorded.
In many states, audits involve hand-counting the votes on paper ballots and comparing the results to the totals stored in the state’s electronic voting system. Such audits do sometimes turn up mistakes that reverse an election. That happened in Florida’s Palm Beach County in 2012, when a post-election audit determined that the “winners” in two city council races were actually losers.
Routine audits also make it possible to confirm the accuracy of elections without putting the onus on losing candidates to call for a recount. In states without regular audits, a candidate who questions the results gets “painted as a sore loser,” Pamela Smith, president of the nonprofit Verified Voting, said in an interview earlier this year. “If you do a regular audit, you often don’t need a recount. It either shows the count was right or you find something.”
Any attempted hack to swing the results in three states would have been a massive and unprecedented undertaking. But electoral security was an issue that loomed large in many Americans’ minds this year as the Democratic National Committee and several Clinton staffers had their emails breached and later released. U.S. security officials believe that hack of email was orchestrated by Russian hackers.
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
78 responses to “Clinton being pushed to seek vote recount in 3 states”
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Clearly some hackers favored Trump and only leaked Clinton team emails. Someone (including Russians) wanted Trump to win. They could have hacked the votes as well. Audit!
Please…go for it.
Be careful what you wish for. The Dems have historically been known to receive votes from the deceased and multiple times from the same individuals.
@Palani; no proof of that exists.
Liberals don’t believe in proof as in no evidence; they would rather indulge in fantasies of their own imagination. It’s ironic that they demanded that Trump accept the results of the election and look what’s happening now. Bunch of hypocrites.
3 deceased, same person with multiple votes, Mickey mouse and Bozo the Clown all voted Democrat in 2012. Not to mention the illegals.
Hilarious when those who belong to the party which doesn’t believe in science accuses liberals of believing in fantasies.
@ OldDiver
Yeah maybe …but ain’t it wonderful!!
#MAGA
@ OldDiver – hope you aren’t too old to realize that you’ve just made a red herring argument. One should have better sense then to engage in a fallacious argument.
Heh, trying to reason with right wingers is a hopeless endeavor
@ OldDiver seems that way when looking from a losers prism….he he
Jan. 20, 2017 will erase the previous 8 years of BS & DECEIT & LIES & placed Dems into a modern day STONE AGE!
#MAGA
And no evidence of hacking exists, so why the recount?
The dems also get votes from illegals because they “buy” those votes.
I say RECOUNT….! It was so much fun to watch the first time, why not do it all over again.
If they recount they will discover that a million monkeys actually did vote for Hillary.
I want a recount of the Obama elections.
I understand Steve Harvey has been hired to do the recount!!
Fine, let’s push for an investigation in the Clinton Foundation.
Nope, the Clinton team will not challenge the results. Clearly, Hiliary and Bill were afraid of the upcoming investigation on her emails and their foundation. The deal between Trump and the Clintons was quid pro quo, no recount, no investigation which has already been announced by Trump himself. It’s American politics folks…of the worst kind.
There will be no further investigation.
Not if the FBI says so.
And don’t forget to investigate Trump’s foundation for fraud.
We’d be remiss if we did not mention & include the Clinton Foundation for not only fraud but possibly exposing/breech our NATIONAL SECURITY…speaking of which wonder why hiLIARy was not investigated for telling the World about the 4 minute Nuclear elapse time from notify to pressing the button? Which begs Thanksgivings for hiLIARy losing the election.
#MAGA
You already know that Trump’s campaign promises were lies he never meant to fulfill. Same for the false and distorted accusations. Emails, Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation (a great charitable organization) have been investigated for years, wasting taxpayers’ money, and NOTHING has come out of it.
Hillary Clinton is not afraid of being “caught” if the Republicans spend another four years “investigating” her. She is tired of answering the same questions over and over again. And now we realize that half the country is so illiterate that a doofus like Trump can just spit out lies and have his way with the president’s office.
Congratulations, you got what you wanted. But actually, you didn’t get the person you voted for. Condolences.
You still lost after all that.
Gracefully accepting the results of the election you have not.
Who let the monkey out>
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH YOU WHINER CLINTON SUPPORTERS!! WORSE THAN CRYBABIES !!!!
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH I HAVE TO TALK IN ALL CAPITALS!!
Not if the FBI says so.
Hey, remember when people were saying that Trump was a paranoid nutbar for suggesting the votes could be tampered with?
Remember when Hillary Clinton thought it was “terrifying” that President Elect Trump might not accept the results of the election?
Do the DNC and Hilary Clinton have short term memory loss?
I remember quite clearly Clinton, President Obama and Democrats in general attacking Trump for not saying if he would accept the results of the election and saying it would be an attack on American Democracy if he did not accept the results. How can Clinton now not accept the results of the election? Wouldn’t that be a direct attack on our democracy?
Clinton disappointed. Disappointment again on the outcome of the recount? She will end up with a heart attack.
Think it is more likely that the Donald has more to fear. He obviously does not have the stamina. What will he do when he is faced with a real crisis? I have always felt that he is more likely to have a heart attack. The poor Donald. He is so out of his league. He will probably be impeached within a year or two.
Remember when Clinton was criticized for renting out the Lincoln bedroom? The Donald has taken this to a new high. It will be interesting to see if republicans will allow his conflicts of interest to continue. Enjoy your clown republicans You succeeded in going to the town butcher for brain surgery. Enjoy.
lol
You having crow today?
Boots says: “Remember when Clinton was criticized for renting out the Lincoln bedroom? The Donald has taken this to a new high.”
What are you talking about? Seriously. I see all these wild accusations against President Elect Trump but no evidence? What is he doing that is worse than renting out the Lincoln Bedroom?
I keep seeing all these scary fever-dream scenarios, but all he appears to be doing is picking his cabinet.
And if the DNC didn’t want Donald Trump in the Whitehouse, then they shouldn’t have sabotaged Bernie Sanders candidacy, disenfranchised their own voter with “super delegates” in order to install an unlikable, unrelatable party hack who would rather go to glitzy Hollywood parties and ignore the rust-belt states that she got trounced in.
Next time, your candidate needs to get into actual neighborhoods and communities instead of flouncing around on-stage with Beyonce, Jay Z, and Katy Perry!! Bernie Sanders would have crushed this.
You want someone to blame? Get a mirror for yourself and the rest of the money and corporation loving DNC hacks.
E X A C T L Y.
BOOM!
That all you got earhole? You guaranteed a Clinton win. Now all you got is whine dine. Impeached? Really? Trump will win 2nd term. Get over it loser.
Yes, too many Trump steaks + too much irate twittering at 3 am = heart attack waiting to happen.
1week after the election hiLIARy came out from her and she at least looked 10 years older…her health problems is catching up on her.
….came out from her “bed”
It’s too late. She’s toast. Get over it.
“This worried senior Democrats, who told me she seemed to be taking winning for granted rather than fighting for it.”
Clinton’s leisurely pace fed the perception that she thought she was marching to an inevitable coronation. Inevitability didn’t work out too well for Clinton in 2008, and it didn’t work this year, either.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/why-hillary-clinton-lost/507704/
Nothing here folks, move along.
Move on.com is funding the recall movement. This organization has as its inactive chairman John Podesta a minion of George Soros who is the chairman of the OpenSocietyFoundation whose aim is anti-government. The move on organization’s goal is to continue fermenting turmoil post election results. They are pushing for abolishing the current method of selecting the POTHUS. This will take a lengthy process if undertaken
Compare the photo of Hillary in this article with yesterday’s photo during her shopping for Thanksgivingg in their local community. She and Bill look beat up and tired like a normal senior citizens. She will soon be shuffling like the rest of us?
Sooooooooooo Pathetic! Democrats Losers are claiming a recount,threatening to secede from the US, threatening to abolish the electoral College process in favor of the popular vote?
So what’s next ? Today they are “Twisting The Arms of the Electoral College members, to changes their votes!(so far they twisted what 6 arms? lol.)……… This one borders the realm of Extortion and is shameful!
Why can’t these people get it through cerebral membrane that they have LOST! Even with Popular Votes( They say it’s 2Mil more),that Hillary has,however,Pres.Trump will surpass her in the Electoral votes coming from Michigan,another 16 electoral votes,which will give President Trump a Total of 306 electoral votes!BTW can anyone explain to me WHY MICHIGAN HAS TAKEN SO LONG? Hey guys, The Deadline has long passed!
I hope all the supporters of Hillary Clinton will accept this fact” Hillary, said that she would accept the outcome of the results. Right?….OK that’s a NO Brainer.
So why can’t they follow the example of their Leader “The Clintons”?
Yep!
I too believe there is something seriously wrong with the minds of Liberal Democrats. Man! I’m thinking? Could Rush Limbaugh be right? Is there some sort of Mental Illness the Democrats are suffering from? Because for me? The Democrats are simply acting like children!No wait! My children act waaaay better than them…..sorry kids. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!Happy Thanksgiving!
President Trump Officially WINS Michigan! Confirms,Detroit Free Press,by 10704 more votes ,than Hillary! Electoral votes goes to him, a total of 306 electoral votes!
BOOM!
Forget it – just concentrate on the roast bird and punkin pie.
What are the hiLIARy people having for dessert besides crow?
A side of humble pie maybe?
before the election, huffington post wrote that one dangerous consequence of trump not accepting the results of the elections was the risk of triggering violence.
rather prophetic as blm organizers in chicago and seattle plan blm shopping sprees on black friday in protest of the election results.
sad that obama and clinton fail to address the issue and call for americans to accept the vote results for the good of democracy in america.
Wasn’t Obama who said that elections are not rigged. It will be rigged if a recount is done, since after the original votes were counted, ballots for Clinton has popped up that came from places nobody knows, except the democrats or let’s say the globalist. The overseers forgot to watch the aftermath of these people.
The “experts” have no evidence of any irregularities, they just want a recount to spite Trump. Sounds good to me.
And exactly how will a recount ensure that a cyberattack was not committed? It seems to me that can be determined only by a forensic IT inspection of voting machines that were connected to the Internet. As I recall, IT experts and election officials said it was not possible to hack into voting machines because they were not connected to the Internet, so what gives?
It costs money to initiate the recount. If you feel so sure the results will turn the tide, open your wallets and donate because Hillary isn’t going to use any of her money to fund it. She’s probably already hid a lot of it so she can ride off into the sunset and watch all the suckers that keep donating to her.
She doesn’t need to hide her personal money. She made a bunch of money from Wall Street between gigs (nothing illegal, just not wise for someone planning to run for president—but far less compromising than all the crooked business deals Trump has made).
And stop slandering the Clinton Foundation. Learn how to read, don’t let your Republican leaders play you for the fool. It’s an A-Rated charitable organization, from which Bill and Hillary received ZERO income.
Deep fried or traditional…your crow?
I never said anything about the Clinton foundation but since you brought it up, there must be doubt in the back of your mind if you are defending the foundation. I am not party particular when it comes to voting. I vote for the best candidate regardless of party affiliation. If Hillary was running for prison I would have ran to the polls to cast my vote for her because that’s about all she’s qualified for. When you claim to have 30 years of government experience and then commit several classified security violations, that should be enough proof that she’s not qualified to hold the codes to launch nuclear weapons. Next time you need a periodic investigation done for your security clearance, put down Hillary as one of your references.
There’s no doubt in my mind—that people like Mike Pence are manipulating the reading comp challenged by saying “Only 5% of Clinton Foundation money ends up going to charitable grants.”
Do you understand his misinformation? Pence is too educated to not know the simple truth, that the foundation doesn’t just hand out money, it runs programs that help people and the environment.
Fact: They do give out 6% of their funds in monetary donations, and spend 82% on positive programs like the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative. 88% of funds going to help people makes it a great organization.
Pence is being dishonest, manipulating ignorant people, when he says “Only 5%…ends up going to charitable grants.” Do you not understand his deception?
I’m not a blind Hillary follower. That would be stoopid to pick a favorite, then close your mind to any new facts. (Example: Trump fans who insist on NOT seeing his tax returns. Look it up in the dictionary under “Sucker.”)
I’ve looked at enough sites that give the Clinton Foundation the highest ratings. If you found one site that gives it 4 out 5 stars, fine, nobody’s perfect. And 4/5 is way better than any rating the Trump Foundation joke could ever get.
Out of all the hacks, they found a few emails in which several donors requested strategic seating at dinners or asked for access meetings. SURPRISE: That happens in any charitable situation. Many people who donate expect something back. The Clinton people handled those requests the best they could.
And after millions of dollars wasted, investigations have found ZERO criminal activity on the part of Bill and Hillary.
The Republicans have been lying to you for years, to give themselves a little political advantage. In this close election, that made the difference.
So if you votes for Trump for good reasons (or even blind reasons), congratulations. Just don’t disparage the Clinton Foundation. Now that they’ve won, your GOP leaders now have nothing more to say or lie about the foundation.
BS and Chelsy gets what?
“Charity Navigator awarded the Clinton Foundation four-stars based on an rating algorithm that scored the controversial non-profit with a 97.5 on financial issues and 93 on accountability and transparency. The new rating represented a boost for the foundation, as Charity Navigator had previously put it on its watch list due to concerns about its finances and transparency. But the four-star rating had hardly been announced before the Associated Press reported that Charity Navigator was a member of the CGI from 2012 to 2014.”
so, in essence, the clinton money laundering operation used its own organization to rate it “a” as a charity. what a scam.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/01/clinton-foundation-doles-out-favors-gets-four-star-rating-in-return-on-charity-website/#ixzz4QxPehve1
The Donald was right—the election WAS rigged!
…MM still haven’t recovered…sad.
#MAGA
Sad case. He has the aptitude of 1 million monkeys. Somebody throw him a banana.
The election is over, Trump is President. Let it go. Let it go.
Inability to deal with reality confirms initial diagnosis of mental deficiency.
Enough allready….let’s move on.
Jill Stein raised almost $3 mil in donations for a recount so looks like there will be one and sure will be something if Clinton actually won those electoral votes.
Then that would be rigged!
@ rayhawaii…what happens to that money if they don’t have a recount?
Stein has absolutely nothing to gain by a recount, so why is she doing it? Is she a Hillary surrogate? Just wondering.
Jesus Christ. Hillary Clinton & her supporters sure are a piece of work.
My dear old mother was right, politicians are all a bunch of crooks, it really doesn’t matter who gets elected, they enter into office to do good and stay to do well.
Agreed! Trump will get things done, he’s not a politician.
Their song would be Salt n Pepa “Push it,Push it real good.”
Hillary will not ask for recount she had to do it by today the reason is because trump will not spend his time locking her up because Obama would have pardon Hillary of any crimes she committed during her tenure as SS past and until now while he is still president the same thing ford pardon Nixon of any wrongdoing from when Nixon became president until his resigning so because of that I feel she will not go for the recount, so that is why it would have been useless for trump to go after Hillary which was a good move on trumps part.