In PA, Jill Stein waited till the last minute, likely won't have enough volunteers

[pnwmom]

She needs 3 volunteers from EVERY one of the thousands of districts in the state to sign affadavits, and only had 1500 (out of 30,000 needed) as of Sunday. Why didn't she start that at the same time she started collecting money for the recounts?

And why didn't she post info about needing the PA volunteers on the donation page, where people would be sure to see it? Lots of people would probably have been happy to sign the affidavits, if she had started collecting names soon enough. As it is, she's already missed the deadline in some districts.

http://billypenn.com/2016/11/28/jill-steins-pennsylvania-recount-4-new-developments-on-deadline-day/

Stein can’t simply ask for a recount in Pennsylvania. She needs Keystone State residents to ask for one for her.

That’s because for a recount to happen — barring a credible accusation of voter fraud ruled by the courts — three voters in each district must petition the results through an affidavit. Philadelphia alone, with its 1,600 voting divisions, would need requests from nearly 5,000 people to undergo a recount. The whole state would likely need about 30,000 volunteers. Stein got about 49,000 votes in PA.

Through Facebook and Twitter, she’s been asking for volunteers and has set up a process showing interested parties how to file an affidavit. As of 11 a.m. Sunday, she tweeted 1,500 Pennsylvanians had volunteered.

The deadline has already passed in some Pennsylvania districts, Stein said in a message to prospective volunteers. So it’s unlikely all of Pennsylvania is going to be recounted, regardless of Stein’s attempt.

SNIP

Should a significant number of counties get the requisite number of petitions, the recount process could be arduous. This is because many Pennsylvania polling stations don’t produce paper copies.

For a recount, each machine in the state would have to be opened and re-analyzed. Stein is also seeking volunteers to observe this recount process, especially in Pennsylvania’s smaller counties.

[madaboutharry]

1. That is disappointing and it shows

how messed up the entire system really is. It also shows some incompetence on her part to have not gotten things lined up.

[pnwmom]

2. Or maybe it's what she wanted to happen,

since she said that they'd be keeping unneeded money for their "election integrity" efforts, whatever that is.

[womanofthehills]

35. There is going to zero unneeded money - Wisconsin keeps upping the amount of money they want

Wisconsin now wants huge amts of money - way beyond what they originally asked for according to Greg Palist.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

41. They gave an estimate before

based on a recount of about half as many votes. I would expect it to be more, just curious as to how much more.

[womanofthehills]

44. Now they want way more money for the people working the audit

[SickOfTheOnePct]

45. I Googled but can't find the new number

do you have a link? Thanks!

[womanofthehills]

49. Greg Palist just said this today on Randi Rhodes show

They want to pay the Wisconsin workers in the audit more money now. He will be posting a question and answer post soon. Greg is friends with one of Jill's lawyers. He said her lawyer is one of the best.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

66. I just found something

$3.5 million. If it turns out to be less, they get a refund. If it's more, they have to pay the additional.

[womanofthehills]

38. OMG - she is working day and night on 3 states at the same time

[madaboutharry]

43. I know that, what I meant

was that the need for voter signatures should have been posted on the day the collection of money began so there could be a jump on things. I understand the enormity of this undertaking.

[jmg257]

3. She was probably very busy over the holiday weekend - sounds like an awful lot of stuff

to keep track of.

What kind of team does she have for stuff like this?

[pnwmom]

4. Why didn't she put up info about needing the volunteers on her donation page?

Those 30,000 volunteers were as critical as the millions of dollars.

[jmg257]

5. Not sure. Can we assume she was aware of it and the deadlines involved?

[pnwmom]

6. Of course she was aware of it. Would she have collected millions of dollars

without checking the procedures first?

[womanofthehills]

7. She could still get a huge response today

it was only a few counties that passed the deadline.

[pnwmom]

8. Yeah, right. n/t

[womanofthehills]

15. The campaign has gone to court to extend deadline - see what happens

Supporters of Green Party leader Jill have filed election challenges in more than 100 precincts in Pennsylvania. The campaign has also gone to court to extend the deadline from Monday in order make challenges in more districts.

“The Stein recount effort is mobilizing concerned voters across Pennsylvania to request recounts in their precincts,” Ms Stein campaign manager David Cobb told Politico in a statement.

“Additionally, the campaign filed a legal petition in state court today on behalf of 100 Pennsylvania voters to protect their right to substantively contest the election in Pennsylvania beyond the recounts being filed by voters at the precinct level.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/election-recount-jill-stein-pennsylvania-recount-a7444231.html

[womanofthehills]

51. Actually, now she is gettting deadlines pushed back in some counties

which is great news

[anamandujano]

61. Great to hear this. Thank you.

[womanofthehills]

39. Actually, she just needs the large Dem counties

which is what they are going after. That's were all the discrepancies will be.

[jmg257]

9. Oh, I don't know, let's hope not! Plenty of people were screaming "recount!" despite

the lack of probability of hacks, maybe she got caught up in the excitement??

Not her money after all.

[pnwmom]

12. It will be her money -- whatever's left over from what she collects.

It won't hurt her if they don't get approved for a recount. They'll get to keep it for their "election integrity" work, which is how they position their whole party.

[jmg257]

14. Ha excellent point - so other then some possibly baoptics, what does she have to lose? Interesting.

[womanofthehills]

16. This is a Fox news talking point - there are Federal laws about what she can use the money for

[pnwmom]

20. The Greens say they are the party all about election integrity -- it's part of their mission.

So they will use the money to promote their party.

[womanofthehills]

37. Why do you keep posting lies from Fox news

the FEC has rules.

[pnwmom]

48. I didn't post anything from Fox or read anything except

the Green's own web site.

[womanofthehills]

53. Well what you are saying is exactly what Fox is saying

[pnwmom]

55. So you are the one listening to Fox then.

And Fox is apparently capable of reading the Green's website.

[womanofthehills]

57. Greg Palist was on Randi's show today and he said the FEC is VERY STRICT about this

and the funds are in a separate account. He also said it was a Republican talking point that is untrue.

[pnwmom]

69. Greg Palast lost all credibility with me when he went around yelling

that Bernie was winning in CA and they weren't counting provisional votes there -- all lies. Some states might not count provisional votes but they always do in California. And the final result put Hillary solidly ahead, just as they had announced on the day of the election.

[womanofthehills]

72. I disagree - I think he is an excellent investigative reporter

and he has been digging up good stuff about sleazy Kris Kobach who Trump wants to give a cabinet position too. With his program crosscheck, Kobach denied thousands of dems their right to vote - and for that Kobach gets a present of a possible cabinet post.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890

[pnwmom]

74. Then why was he lying about the provisional votes not being counted in CA?

All he would have had to do was "investigate" the Secretary of State's website, where anyone could view the counting -- of all the separate categories of ballots -- while it was going on.

Or he could have consulted Snopes.

http://www.snopes.com/uncounted-california-ballots/

"USA Daily Politics cited a blog post by investigative journalist Greg Palast to support its claim that a majority of provisional ballots were discarded. However, that claim was addressed and largely debunked the next day, when Dean Logan of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk addressed fears of uncounted provisional ballots on Twitter and stated that most would probably be deemed valid and added to totals.

https://www.lavote.net/home/voting-elections/voting-options/at-the-polls/provisional-voting

Provisional voting has been used in California since 1984. Once voted, a provisional ballot is placed in a pink envelope and secured for processing. Provisional ballots are counted after elections officials have confirmed the validity of the voter’s registration and that the voter did not already vote in the election.

Past election records show that on average 85-90% of provisional ballots are valid and counted.

So he lied about CA not counting provisional votes, and he lied about Bernie winning CA:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/22/californias-lengthy-vote-count-stokes-theories-that-sanders-actually-won-the-primary/

"I can tell you this: Senator Sanders won California," Palast said. "Let me do the math for you. Most of those late mailed-in ballots were what are called NPP, No Party Preference. These independent ballots were the ones that came in late because people had to switch their ballots. It’s a complex process, in California, that’s all I can tell you. The late ballots are Sanders ballots."

[SickOfTheOnePct]

27. Or maybe not for election integrity

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-will-the-green-party-jill-stein-use-election-recount-donations/

If there is extra money in the donation fund -- or if Stein’s petition fails to pass muster with the election commissions in any of the states --Martin promised that the money will be used to fund the Green party’s local “campaign schools,” meant to groom local candidates for public service. “As a national party, our commitment is to build at the local level,” Martin said. “That’s where these dollars and excess dollars will go.”


On her website, however, Stein’s donation page says that any extra dollars not devoted to the recount will “go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform."

[womanofthehills]

36. You keep posting it will be her money - which is a HUGE Republican talking point

Greg Palist just that that is being spread falsely by Republicans. The FEC specifies those funds must be in a separate account.

[womanofthehills]

42. There will be no f**king left over money - she will need to raise more

Wisconsin especially keeps upping the money they now want according to Greg Palist.

[anamandujano]

62. I read something about Trump challenging the recount, can't remember which state.

He will probably fight this tooth and nail and have lawyers all over the place to delay, deny and whatever else they can think of. There will be zip left. As you say, it's a Repuke talking point.

[womanofthehills]

64. Ha Ha - one of the states says he wants to recount is California

So funny but not really because it shows his dementia.

[anamandujano]

67. He has access to chit tons of money if he wants recounts.

He could challenge in states Hillary took but methinks he's been advised it wouldn't be helpful to his cause.

[pnwmom]

77. If you added the initial filing fees they came to 2.1 million.

At first she said that attorneys fees would be 1 million. Then she changed it to 2-3 million.

Add her biggest estimate for attorney's fees to the filing fees and the result is 5.1 million. So she has almost $2 million in padding, which should be plenty. And if PA derails her lawsuit quickly, which it probably will, then most of the PA money won't be spent.

[womanofthehills]

82. Early in this post, someone looked up Wisconsin fees & said it's now 3.5 million Wisconsin wants

[KittyWampus]

23. How do you know what she was aware of? Your posts on this topic are biased

And tiresome.

[womanofthehills]

40. Agreed - all she is doing is posting Republican talking points all over DU

over and over

[texasmomof3]

10. Yes absolutely she was aware of it.

She is not new to politics or recounts not to mention the rules are easily found by google. Seriously, if I can find the rules so can she and or her team. If you want to be taken seriously you get your act together and you get your game plan in place in plenty of time to do what you are asking millions of people to donate for. If she wasn't aware of it then she was not prepared for or qualified for this fight. You don't do something like this half ass. It makes you look foolish and incompetent at best and deceitful at worst. Her donors deserve her full and complete effort and by not asking for volunteers sooner she did not do her best.

[jmg257]

11. Thanks - that makes sense! Very interesting situation.

[pnwmom]

13. Well put. And welcome to DU!

[womanofthehills]

17. Agreed - working on three states at once

[meow2u3]

18. I don't have the money to put in

Otherwise, I'd volunteer. It does cost money in PA to initiate a recount/audit.

[womanofthehills]

19. Jill just tweeted they are filing affidavits just now in Allegheny County

I'm sure they are concentrating on certain counties.

[pnwmom]

21. Philadelphia county is where they need them. Lots of Dems and

they only use paperless, hackable machines.

[LisaL]

22. And how does one recount paperless hackable machines?

[Bob41213]

24. Rechecks what it said...

So they reread the memory and find it's the same as before unless there was a human transposition error.

[womanofthehills]

46. 70 per cent machines, 30 percent absentee ballots and early voting

Looks like early voting was all on paper.

I assume they check the machines for malware and if the results from each machine was actually added to the final total, etc.

[pnwmom]

78. The proposal is that they open up the machines and look inside them.

What that will prove, I don't know -- especially because one of the computer scientists pointed out that hacking software can be programmed to self-destruct after an election.

The computer scientist says paper is the only safe way to go.

[Barack_America]

75. No. Philly produced the required margins. Look elsewhere.

Allegheny is a smart target.

And all Philly machines print to a paper tape. I've voted in them and my prior apartment building was my precinct. I've seen these machines delivered, set up, torn down. I've seen the tapes. I've inquired about the tapes. There is one tape for each machine and each is labeled with its corresponding machine.

[pnwmom]

80. Here's a map of the country showing counties that use paperless DRE machines,

and Philadelphia county is one of them. I wonder if yours was an exception. Did you vote there recently? Because some counties are continuing to buy these DRE paperless machines.

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#year/2016/state/42

[Barack_America]

81. Nope. Same machines county-wide.

Now, I don't know that there's a record of every vote on that tape, but there is a paper tape with the final tally, and I don't think the machines can be easily tampered after they're set up.

Now, as for code and the internal counting mechanism, I can't speak for that.

[womanofthehills]

83. Pennsylvania's aging voting machines could be 'nightmare scenario' (7 minutes and a screwdriver)

in the event of a disputed election.

But Andrew Appel, a Princeton professor of computer science, said that given a screwdriver and seven minutes with an electronic machine, he could “install a vote-stealing program” that would be hard to detect and shift a percentage of the votes.

In states like Pennsylvania, these voting machines “are delivered to polling places several days before the election — to elementary schools, churches and firehouses,” he said. That creates the risk of tampering. “This is not just one glitch in one manufacturer’s machine. It’s the very nature of computers,” he told a House subcommittee last month.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pennsylvania-voting-paperless-20161020-snap-story.html

[pnwmom]

84. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. The only machines the computer scientists approve of

are either optical scanners of paper ballots; or electronic machines that make an instant paper trail of each individual ballot.

The computer scientists say the electronic machines are easily hackable -- even if they're not connected to the Internet -- and the hack can occur without leaving traces.

[DeminPennswoods]

25. PA counties where R votes exceeded R registrations

I did a little spreadsheet and while I don't think this is anything more than Dem ticket-splitting or voters registered with other parties voting for Trump, there are 13 counties where Trump got more votes than there were Republicans registered to vote (i.e., more than 100% of registered Rs).

The list: Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Carbon, Elk, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Luzerne, Washington and Westmoreland.

Most of these counties are in western Pa and the voters here have been steadily becoming more conservative voting. Voting registration has changed, and is continuing to change, from D to R, but it's not complete yet.

[LaydeeBug]

26. There were court orders in PA about KGB/GOP fraud

So hopefully they will be on that. I do not live in PA, but my KGB/GOP brother served time there, lol (we don't speak)

[drm604]

29. Can you elaborate on that?

What court orders?

[Amishman]

47. Not what you think. GOP was forbidden to have poll watchers in Philly

The Republicans were freaking out that this would allow our side to commit fraud.

The back story is that there are parts of Philly so blue that the Pubs couldn't find residents to be poll watchers. They asked to bring in watchers from outside and were denied. I wouldn't worry about those districts, there literally were no Republicans around to try anything.

Link to story

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-03/gop-barred-from-sending-poll-watchers-to-philadelphia

[drm604]

68. Yes, because of PA law.

In PA there are restrictions on who can be a poll watcher. I forget the exact details but to be a watcher. you have to be registered in that precinct, or maybe you just have to be registered in the county, I'm not sure which.

Philadelphia is heavily minority (and is it's own county) so I can easily imagine them having difficulty finding Republicans that could legally watch the polls.

[4139]

28. The deadline passed Nov 21st... I think Jill was fish for something good for

the lawsuit filed this afternoon.... filed on behalf of 100 Pennsylvania voters

[ELY08]

31. Not true

The deadline to file is Mon., Nov. 28th

[4139]

33. Deadline for 'citizen recount' was the 21st; deadline to contest in court is today

According to Wanda Murren, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, the deadline under the law for a voter-initiated recount at the county level had been Monday, Nov. 21.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/Despite-successful-fundraising-effort-recount-of-Pennsylvania-remains-difficult.html%3Famphtml%3Dy?client=safari

[ELY08]

34. Thanks

I get it now

[ELY08]

30. Well Pn

I think she did all she could do
It was up to us in Pa to do the rest. I can tell you I was scrambling because I was unaware of the recount laws and only found out yesterday.
I was able to get mine done in Leigh county
Its not steins fault. It was us, in Pa, fault, for not knowing the laws.

[drm604]

32. I volunteered

but I started a new job today and, given the short time frame, there was simply no way that I could notarize and deliver an affadavit in time. And two other people were needed for just my precinct.

Since I did sign up I've been seeing the emails flying back and forth on the recount mailing list. People were confused about where to file. People were desperately trying to find voters to sign affadavits. People were trying to find available notaries.
And on top of all of that, apparently someone on FB was posting false stories saying don't bother, county clerks are refusing the affadavits, which wasn't true.

It does appear that there may be some precincts that have the necessary number of affadavits to trigger a recount, but there are many more that don't.

[oberliner]

50. I wonder what will happen to the surplus funds she raised

Millions more than she was able to raise throughout her entire campaign.

She figured out a way to get Democrats to give her money while she continues to bash Hillary Clinton.

[womanofthehills]

54. OMG! Give it a break! FEC has very STRICT REGULATIONS about this -

It's in a separate account only used for the purpose intended.

Greg Palist addressed this today on Randi Rhodes - saying it is a Republican talking point and there is zero concern.

Stein will probably need to raise even more money because the Wisconsin older white guys Election Committe are being assh**es and keep upping the money they want for their audit workers.

[anamandujano]

63. If this was posted on twitter, you'd get a message saying "you already made this tweet."

[andym]

52. So isn't this a situation where a site like DU could have helped her.

You would think with the social networks she could gather enough people, but the word really needs to get out faster.

[womanofthehills]

59. You can donate at this site to help -

https://jillstein.nationbuilder.com/recount#_=_

[pnwmom]

71. Why didn't she use that page to ask for volunteers willing to sign affidavits

since she needed them to go forward? Why take the money and not collect the volunteers for the affidavits? There are more than 9600 precincts and she needed 3 volunteers from each.

[apcalc]

56. I filed affidavits this morning with two other voters from my precinct.

The affidavit asked for not only a recount, but the affidavit asked for a forensic analysis of the lousy machines we use. Two of us have volunteered to monitor a recount.

It is DISGRACEFUL in the way we vote.

I'll file affidavits very year from now on because the way it is done is completely unacceptable .

Fraud and Hack waiting to happen....

[Laura PourMeADrink]

58. OMG it's Gore deja vu. Why in the world did Hillary concede? she should have

said, I will concede after a recount in the close states if I am short. Conceding says to all the world you lost.

[Travis_0004]

60. She did lose.

[anamandujano]

65. Conceding means nothing.

[drm604]

70. Because of the petitions

Montgomery County PA is delaying certification until Dec. 12. I'm not sure about other counties.
http://www.montcopa.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3516

[womanofthehills]

73. Bucks County also delaying certification

“They’re also seeking a forensic analysis of the voting machines,” he said, “because they believe there is some funny business or fraud or something that took place with the machines themselves, that they were capable of being hacked.”

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/11/28/pennsylvania-election-results-recount/

[apcalc]

76. Damn right, the voting machines are a disgrace.

[YOHABLO]

79. The fact that the DNC is staying neutral on this makes me very angry.

Anyone who believes there was no maleficence on behalf of the Republicans is living in a fairy land.