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Jill Stein's Recount Effort Surpasses Fundraising Goal With Over $4M: Campaign

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein's effort to force a recount of the general election results in three Rust Belt states garnered more green Friday: It surpassed her initial fundraising goal and crossed the $4 million mark, the

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Nov 25 2016, 11:05 am ET

Jill Stein's Recount Effort Surpasses Fundraising Goal With Over $4M: Campaign

by Adam Howard

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein's effort to force a recount of the general election results in three Rust Belt states garnered more green Friday: It surpassed her initial fundraising goal and crossed the $4 million mark, the third-party candidate's campaign said.
Stein is mounting a legal challenge to re-examine the vote totals in Michigan, where NBC News has yet to officially call a winner, as well as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — states that performed wildly different than polling suggested they would on Election Day.
While she said her initial fundraising goal was $2.5 million, her campaign website now says she's trying to net $7 million, which would pay for the fees for filing costs, attorneys and statewide recount observers.

Jill Stein seeking a presidential recount 7:27

President-elect Donald Trump still holds narrow leads in all three states, and his victories in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin provided him with the Electoral College advantage he needed to win the presidency.
However, reports of irregularities in the vote count — brought to light by a collection of scientists and activists — along with concerns over whether Russia may have attempted to influence the results and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's historic and growing popular vote victory, have provided the momentum and emotion behind this admittedly long-shot fight to force a recount.
"After a divisive and painful presidential race, reported hacks into voter and party databases and individual email accounts are causing many Americans to wonder if our election results are reliable," Stein said on Wednesday. "These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified. We deserve elections we can trust."
Related: How Would a Contested Election Work? Five Things to Know
For its part, the Clinton campaign, which stands to benefit the most from overturned election results, has remained quiet on Stein's crusade.
Although two advocates for a recount, lawyer John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, did attempt to lobby members of her team to back the effort during a conference call last week.

Few precedents for popular vote gap like 2016 13:21

"There's either a huge subset of hidden voters that didn't tell pollsters how they were going to vote, or something went awry with those voting systems. If we can X out that second option, why not," a source who was privy to conversations with the Clinton camp recently told NBC News.
The Clinton campaign was reportedly unmoved because there have no been widespread reports of fraud or vote tampering. Many experts believe that the real culprit behind the polling disparities in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania was an unmotivated Democratic base, which failed to turn out in full force on Election Day.
The Trump campaign has also been dismissive of Stein's actions, with the president-elect's aide, Kellyanne Conway, mocking the Green Party candidate's supporters on Twitter:

Still, Stein's push is moving forward and she is up against the clock. The deadline to request a recount of Wisconsin is Friday, and Stein has said the initial $2.5 million she raised will cover that effort. Further funding will be redirected to Michigan, where the filing cost will be $600,000 and the challenge deadline is Monday, and Pennsylvania, where the filing cost is $500,000 and the deadline is Wednesday.
A recount would mean a hand-counting of ballots, including those from electronic machines, which are the ones most in dispute, and experts believe it is highly unlikely that the process would overturn enough votes to help Clinton reduce her deficits.
But according to Stein, that's not the point.
"This is not being done to benefit one candidate at the expense of the other," she said Thursday during an appearance on the PBS NewsHour. "This is being done because Americans, you know, come out of this election not happy campers."

Who is Third Party Candidate Jill Stein? 0:36