NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump moved on Friday to halt the Green Party’s requests for long-shot recounts of the presidential votes in three states where Trump, a Republican, won with narrow victories. Lawsuits were pending in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three “Rust Belt” states which bucked their history of supporting Democrats and gave Trump thin wins in the Nov. 8 election. The Green Party has said its requests for recounts in those states are focused on ensuring the integrity of the US voting system and not on changing the result of the election.
Even if the recounts take place, they are extremely unlikely to change the overall outcome of the election, in which Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who garnered only about 1 per cent of the vote, has said the recount campaign is not targeted at Trump or Clinton. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, filed a lawsuit on Friday to halt the requested recount in his state, where Trump won with a margin of roughly 10,700 votes over Clinton. Recounting all of the state’s votes “threatens to silence all Michigan votes for president” because of an impending federal deadline to finalize results, Schuette said in a statement.
In Wisconsin, where the recount is already underway, a federal judge on Friday rejected a request for an emergency stay by the Trump-supporting political action committee Great America PAC. US District Judge James Peterson scheduled a hearing for December 9 to consider whether to halt the recount at that time. The lawsuit filed by the PAC cited as legal precedent the US Supreme Court’s Bush v Gore decision that ended the 2000 election and Florida recount. The presidential race is decided by the Electoral College, or a tally of wins from the state-by-state contests, rather than by the popular national vote. — Reuters
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