Green Party asks for state recount
PHILADELPHIA — Calling Pennsylvania’s election system “a national disgrace,” Green Party-backed lawyers asked a federal judge on Monday to order a recount of the state’s Nov. 8 presidential election result, won by Republican Donald Trump.
A federal lawsuit filed in Philadelphia called for a recount and a forensic examination of the aging electronic voting machines used in most Pennsylvania counties, saying both are necessary to determine whether the election results were manipulated by hackers.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is spearheading a recount effort in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — states where Trump won narrowly over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The lawsuit said Pennsylvania’s paperless voting machines make it a prime target for hacking, citing the election-season e-mail hacking of the Democratic National Committee and attempts to breach election systems in other states.
“The Pennsylvania election system is a national disgrace. Voters are forced to use vulnerable, hackable, antiquated technology banned in other states, then rely on the kindness of machines. There is no paper trail. Voting machines are electoral black sites: No one permits voters or candidates to examine them,” the lawsuit said.
Officials in Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration have said there is no evidence hackers manipulated the vote.
