Donald Trump’s representatives formally filed to stop the recount in Michigan citing three points:
- Stein wasn’t damaged by the vote count, so she gains nothing by petitioning for a recount.
- A recount would prevent Michigan from participating in the Electoral College.
- Oft-used procedural minutiae that the paperwork wasn’t signed and sworn to properly.
You can read it here:
www.michigan.gov/…
What happens now seems to be that the Board of State Canvassers has five days to adopt or reject the objection after filing. If rejected, the recount continues within two days. If adopted, the recount ends.
Greg Palast is one of the best experts you can find on the government techniques to suppress the vote, particularly Kris Kobach’s Crosscheck program which, in a nutshell, determines that two people with similar last names in different states must obviously be the same person, so both are purged from the rolls. He has been following the recount story with zeal and tweeted today that some 19 Wisconsin counties refuse to allow the Stein campaign physical access to the ballots:
Now, if you could have your pick of ballots from anywhere in the state to look at, which ones do you want to see right now? Tell the officer as soon as you’re pulled over that you don’t want him looking in the trunk, don’t be shocked if he wants you to open the trunk.
In other, “interesting” news, updated vote totals in PA simply erase roughly a third of his lead:
And this is before any sort of auditing or recount.
Initially, I was all for the recount purely in the interests of transparency, despite the mammoth polling errors and the exit polling that simply didn’t jive. I’m fine with principle. Why not have the count correct? Now, it was a bonus that it was earning Trump’s ire and Twitter rage. But the fact that he is now quickly moving to quash more efforts along the rust belt blue wall that he simply must have to win, coupled with the ever increasing resistance at the state level suggests not only smoke, but fire.
Maybe one big, PEOTUS-consuming Trumpster fire.