Green Party candidate Jill Stein has absolutely no chance of becoming the next US President. That position is already filled by President-elect Donald Trump who did what many thought impossible on November 8th. That said, Stein’s side still wants a recount in three swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The crazy part is that she already got the initial $2.5 million in funding she wanted in just over a day of online crowdfunding. The crazier part is that she raised the goal of that campaign to $7 million. The absolutely craziest part about the whole thing is that these three states might be enough to give Clinton the win.
The campaign, similar to a Kickstarter crowd-funding project, apparently went viral.
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Stein’s campaign started on Wednesday morning when her campaign asked for $2.5 million for recounts. People pledged $2 million by midnight ET, The Verge reports, and another $500,000 by 3:00 AM on Thursday.
But the campaign raised the amount to $4.5 million after reaching the $2.5 million goal. The Green Party explained that the $2.5 million raised initially would be used for a proposed recount in Wisconsin, and the other two recounts still need funding.
Attorney fees would need one $1 million, Stein’s campaign said initially, on top of the $2.5 million that would cover the costs for the recounts.
The legal fees were then increased to $2 million and then to $3 million, which would bring the total cost of the recount in the three states to up to $7 million.
As @DrJillStein's #Recount2016 campaign nears $2 mil, she changes total goal to $6 or $7 mil. pic.twitter.com/L4oawAoqOO
— David Fishman (@davidpkfishman) November 24, 2016
In a scenario where Stein would go forward with the plan, and the recounts would give Clinton the win in all three swing states, Trump would find himself out of a President job come January. Clinton’s new electoral votes tally would be 278, while Trump’s votes would fall to 260. That would turn Clinton into the next President-elect.
“Our effort to recount votes in those states is not intended to help Hillary Clinton,” The Green Party said. Instead, it’s “part of an election integrity movement” to “shine a light on just how untrustworthy the US election system is.”
The states were chosen because of “statistical anomalies” observed by independent experts. Stein said “the data suggests a significant need to verify machine-counted vote totals” in these three states.
That said, it’s not even clear whether the recounts will be set in motion.
As of this writing, Stein’s recounts campaign collected $2.6 million in pledges — read more details about it at this link.
