Late on Saturday, the Green Party withdrew its demand that the State of Pennsylvania perform a statewide recount, validating the state’s previous announcement giving Trump the win. It also leaves recounts in several other states without a hope of changing the outcome of the November 8 election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States.
Lawyers for the Green Party withdrew a lawsuit, saying they don’t have the $1 million bond required to continue the challenge filed to initiate the recount, the Associated Press reported on December 3.
The lawsuit aimed to supplant state law to force a recount, according to the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
A statement from the state party celebrated the end of the Green Party lawsuit, saying that the effort was “completely without merit” from the start.
At 5:00 p.m. this evening the Stein Petitioners filed to discontinue the Election Contest in Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth Court entered an Order closing the case. Lawrence Tabas, Esq., lead counsel in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump, his Electors, and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania stated that: “The filing of a discontinuance of the Election Contest by Jill Stein’s petitioners tonight is a recognition that their Election Contest was completely without merit, and meant solely for purposes to delay the Electoral College vote in Pennsylvania for President-Elect Trump.”
The State GOP went on to criticize Stein for creating “the fear of chaos by making baseless accusations of the hacking of voting machines in Pennsylvania” and insisted that Stein should also now withdraw her scattered recount petitions filed in various locales in the Keystone State.
An updated vote count in Pennsylvania did revise Trump’s win downward from 71,000 votes to 49,000 but the amount still does not satisfy the .5 percent ratio needed to trigger the state’s official recount statute.
With a recount effort doomed in Pennsylvania, Trump will still have more than the needed 270 Electoral College votes — even if recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan would both miraculously award them to Hillary Clinton — an eventuality few feel is likely.
Even if both Wisconsin and Michigan were to suddenly be thrown into Clinton’s column, Trump would still have 280 out of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
The only hope failed Green Party candidate Stein had of upsetting the election was to have successful recounts in all three states.
Still, recounts in Wisconsin seemed already pointless. Even after several days of recounting there, Hillary Clinton has picked up a grand total of two votes in the Badger State.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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