Local election bureaus await court decision in vote recount
Local election bureau directors continue to await word as to whether they will once again be required to re-canvass the ballots cast by their respective voters in the general election.
On Tuesday, as Greene County Election Bureau Director Tina Kiger was awaiting the second signing of the county report to certify the voting figures, she was also keeping tabs on what direction the Commonwealth Court would take in the lawsuit filed by 100 state voters asking that the figures again be reviewed.
The commonwealth is among the three states targeted by Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, to check the accuracy of the machine-counted ballots.
“In an election surrounded by hacks, the use of systems that have been demonstrated to be easily hacked should concern every American,” said Stein in a press release issued in advance of her filing paperwork with Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan election commissions. “After a divisive and painful presidential race, reported hacks into voter and party databases and individual email accounts are causing many American(s) to wonder if our election results are reliable.
“These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified. We deserve elections we can trust.”
Wisconsin is slated to conduct a recount later this week at Stein’s request and agreement to pay for the ballots to be reviewed. However, the process is different in Pennsylvania.
According to the Pennsylvania recount procedures, three qualified electors in each of the state’s 9,163 precincts, or more than 27,000 people, must file an affidavit with their respective election bureau.
Kiger said the bureau had not received any affidavits and with the certification of the results, any that may be received will be rejected because there was no discrepancy in the vote count figures.
“When we do our re-canvass (following the election) we check everything — the equipment and the count — to make sure there is no more or no less in vote count numbers,” she said. “We found nothing wrong.”
On Tuesday the Fayette County Election Bureau reported it had not received any affidavits, while Washington County had received three from one of its 184 precincts.
Wes Parry, Washington County assistant election bureau director, said the election board denied the request for a recount.
In the affidavit, the Washington Township voter cited concerns about the integrity of the voting system used by the county and error in the counting process.
“I request that the county board not just re-canvass the votes cast on the (electronic voting equipment), but do a forensic analysis of the software and media inside the machines, to determine whether the machines have been hacked or tampered with,” wrote the voter.
Parry said that a machine from the district was analyzed and found to have produced the same vote count on multiple reports.
“There was no fraud,” said Parry, adding that the equipment is not connected to the internet. “You can’t hack into something that you can’t talk to.”
The Washington County Election Board deemed a recount to be unnecessary.
Wanda Murren, state department press secretary, said Tuesday the department continues to gather information from the counties as to their progress in certifying the election returns.
“We’ve learned that many counties have completed their certification, thereby closing the 5-day window to petition at the county level for a recount,” said Murren.
However, Murren said the court could rule a recount if it finds merit in the suit filed by the voters.
“(Stein) will have to prove the election was illegal in some way (for a recount to be ordered by the court),” she said.
In the suit, filed by Bucks County attorney Lawrence Otter, the petitioners claim the voting system used by the state is vulnerable to hacking.
Pointing to a report by University of Michigan Dr. J. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science and engineering and director of the Center for Computer Security and Society at the university, that alleges the presidential election was subject to “unprecedented cyberattacks” by foreign governments, Otter said there is “grave concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machines,” used in Pennsylvania.
“Petitioners believe that there is a legitimate and good faith basis to contest the (state election results), based upon the findings of (Halderman), a leading national expert in computer science and voting systems,” wrote Otter in the suit.
Murren, meanwhile, said the state department had not been notified by the court as to a timetable for any action.
State GOP Chairman Rob Gleason deemed the lawsuit to be “without any merit.”
“This desperate act by Jill Stein and those supporting her is a sad commentary on the failure of some to accept the results of the will of the people as reflected by the voters,” he said.
While decisively overtaking Clinton locally, Trump only won the state by 71,299 votes. Stein received a total of 49,182 statewide, according to the state Department of State.
Constitutional presidential candidate Darrell L. Castle received a total of 21,205 votes in the state, while Libertarian candidate Gary E. Johnson garnered 144,180 votes.
It is unclear whether Michigan will go forward with a recount.
On Monday, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers certified Trump’s victory, giving him the state’s 16 electoral votes.
All states must have the election day ballots counted by the Dec. 13 federal deadline.
Stein initiated an internet fundraising campaign to defray the costs of the three recounts, estimated to cost upwards of $7 million for both filing and legal counsel fees.
As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised $6.42 million, according to the Stein website. The amount is nearly twice what she raised during the campaign.
The Wisconsin recount filing fee is $1.1 million with Pennsylvania’s fee at $500,000 and Michigan, $600,000.
While the campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had publicly said it had vetted the election results and found no reason to request a recount, it has now agreed to participate in the Wisconsin recount and likely the ones scheduled to take place in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“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,” wrote Marc E. Elias, Clinton campaign legal counsel on medium.com, a writers blog site.
Trump, meanwhile, called the recount action a “scam.”
“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” he said.