By James Baxley
Jill Stein’s recount debacle is finally over. The Wisconsin recount gave Trump a larger lead than was originally reported. He gained 131 more votes bringing his total votes to 22,748.
In Detroit’s 662 voting precincts only 236, 37% had ballot totals which matched registration totals. The voting machines in one-third of the election precincts counted more ballots than the number of people registered to vote. Not exactly the result Stein was looking for.
Finally in Pennsylvania, a federal judge rejected Stein’s request for a recount and examination of the state’s voting machines. U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond said: "There is no credible evidence that any 'hack' occurred, and compelling evidence that Pennsylvania's voting system was not in any way compromised."
In Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump beat Mrs. Clinton by about 44,000 votes out of 6,000,000 cast - less than 1%.
Now that the recount is over, what happens to the money not spent? Under FEC law, money raised and placed into a recount account can only be used for recount-related expenes. A campaign must reach out to donors to either refund their excess donations or ask them whether the funds can be used for another purpose.
Stein had raised $7.33 million for the recount in just 2.5 weeks from more than 161,000 donors. The campaign’s latest estimate of costs puts the total recount-related expenses at about $7.4 million. The $7.4 million recount estimate includes: $4.5 million for state filing fees, $1.6 million for legal fees, $212,500 for staff salaries, $364,000 for consultants, and $353,618 for administrative expenses.
Yes, $1 million of the funds Stein raised for recount efforts went to consultants, staff, and administrative costs. In all, $930,118 was spent to pay consultants, staff, and administrative costs.
Who was the winner of this recount campaign? Trump still won the 3 battleground states but the recount winner seems to be Stein.
Stein who received little if any publicity during the election received massive amounts of media attention. According to the Media Research Center, Stein received 12 times more coverage from the recounts than she had from her campaign.
The Media Research Center continues, “When Jill Stein was the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. president, the networks only gave her 36 seconds of coverage, however, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days."