Recount Effort Raised $2.5M in less than a day

I’m inspired by how fast the Green Party recount fund is growing.  Launched yesterday, as of midnight PST last night --raised $2.5M.  Today as of  2:18 pm PST—raised totals over $4.1M and growing.   Fundraising Site Here.

According to the site:

On November 23, the Stein/Baraka Green Party Campaign launched an effort to ensure the integrity of our elections. With your help, we are raising money to demand recounts in these three states where the data suggests a significant need to verify machine-counted vote totals.

In true grassroots fashion, we’re turning to you, the people, and not big-money corporate donors to make this happen.

Update this morning:

Congratulations on meeting the recount costs for Wisconsin! Raising money to pay for the first round so quickly is a miraculous feat and a tribute to the power of grassroots organizing.

Now that we have completed funding Wisconsin's recount (which is due on Friday), we have begun to tackle the funding for Pennsylvania's recount (due Monday). Then we will focus on raising funds for Michigan's recount (due Wednesday).

This is after computer scientists urged the Clinton campaign to ask for a recount, noting statistical irregularities in the vote totals between paper ballots and machine cast ballots.  According to Talking Points Memo’s Caitlin MacNeil:

Stein's effort follows a report in New York Magazine that a group of computer scientists and experts have been urging the Hillary Clinton campaign to request a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, claiming that the results in those states may have been hacked or manipulated. The group of experts did not find actual evidence of hacking, but said that there were discrepancies between Clinton's performance in areas of Wisconsin that used paper ballots and areas of the state that used electronic voting machines. The report in New York Magazine did not say what patterns the experts found in Pennsylvania and Michigan to suggest that totals there were manipulated.

The fundraising page for Stein's recount effort did not mention the New York Magazine report specifically, but said that "data suggests significant discrepancies in vote totals" in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Stein's communications director, Meleiza Figueroa, teased the announcement in a Facebook video on Wednesday afternoon. Figueroa said that "the reports on voting anomalies have been pouring in" and said that there have been news reports with "cyber security experts, computer experts who have been looking at this issue."

The Stein campaign also has legal standing and thus can request a recount.  They have stated they intend to do so in funds can be raised in time. Cost breakdown according to the Stein Campaign:

All money raised goes toward recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We hope to do recounts in all three states. If we only raise sufficient money for two, we will demand recounts in two states. If we only raise enough money for one, we will demand a recount in one state.

We cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting. We can only pledge we will demand recounts in those states.

If we raise more than what's needed, the surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.

Here are the filing fees and deadlines for each state:

Those are filing fees alone. The costs associated with recounts are a function of state law. Attorney's fees are likely to be another $2-3 million, then there are the costs of the statewide recount observers in all three states. The total cost is likely to be $6-7 million.

Godspeed.