hillary clinton – Houghton STAR

Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party’s failed bid for the White House, has filed for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. According to the Associated Press (AP), Stein raised $7 million toward the effort, twice what she garnered for her campaign.

The AP reported that Stein alleged possible tampering with electronic voting machines in the three states. This claim which was backed by J Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, according to BBC.

The White House refuted any possibility of tampering with the election results. A senior official in the Obama administration stated to Politico, “We stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people.” The Clinton campaign also acknowledged a lack of evidence to support Stein’s allegations. Marc Elias, general counsel of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, said he found no “actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology,” Politico reported. Nonetheless, observers from the Clinton campaign will be present at recounts in Michigan, according to BBC.

President-elect Donald Trump countered the recount filings with allegations of his own via Twitter. “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions who voted illegally,” he tweeted on Monday. Also on Monday, Trump clarified in another tweet that he was referring to “serious voter fraud” in Virginia, California, and New Hampshire. NBC News reported that no evidence has been found to support Trump’s claim.

California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, responded with a tweet of his own, saying, “It appears that Mr. Trump is troubled by the fact that a growing majority of Americans did not vote for him. His unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in California and elsewhere are absurd. His reckless tweets are inappropriate and unbecoming of a President-elect,” NBC News reported. Clinton won the popular vote by about 2 million votes, according to NBC News.

Also on Monday, Stein filed a suit against the Wisconsin Elections Committee. The Committee refused to require each county to conduct a recount; if Stein’s loses her suit, she will have to petition each of Wisconsin’s 80+ counties to recount votes.

A Pennsylvania recount will require Stein to provide evidence of probable vote manipulation, which the Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says there is “absolutely no evidence” of, according to the Philadelphia Media Network.

The AP reported that while it is highly unlikely a recount will change the election outcome, the drive for funds will continue to push Stein onto the national stage. After the recount matter is settled, any leftover funds will be funneled into the Green Party for “election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform,” Stein said. Stein also wrote on her website, “These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the US election system is.”

Trump denounced the recount efforts as a “scam,” and accused the Green Party of attempting to “fill up their coffers,” according to BBC. BBC also reported that Trump accused Clinton of reneging on her concession to Trump late on November 8.

In spite of poll predictions, Donald J. Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States, a shock most jarringly felt by the Hillary Clinton campaign, who at times led by double digit polls during the campaign season, according to CNN.

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States like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina, states that had been expected to fall decisively blue, fell in Trump’s favor, carrying him fairly easily to the necessary 270 votes in the Electoral College, the New York Times reported. Protesters gathered in response to Trump’s election, with crowds in Los Angeles stretching for several miles according to CNN. Sanders backed the protests in an interview with USA Today, and stated, “We have a First Amendment. People are angry. People are upset. And they want to express their point of view that they are very frightened, in very, very strong disagreement with Mr. Trump, who has made bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign.”

Trump managed to tap into the heart of the white, working class, a demographic that proved substantial enough to secure him the presidency. Hillary Clinton, however, struggled to recapture levels of voter turnout that President Obama relied so heavily upon in the two previous elections, according to NPR. Perhaps most surprising of all, was the amount of minority support the Republican candidate was able to secure. PBS reported that after weighted consideration of building “The Wall,” after the soundbites denouncing illegal immigrants as “criminals and rapists,” Trump still managed to secure 29% of the Hispanic Vote. In 2012, Mitt Romney mustered 27%, by comparison, according to PBS.

The results of this election could be a definitive end to the influence of the Clintons in left-wing politics according to the Wall Street Journal, with the general public deciding twice that they do not want Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief, having also lost the democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008. Her struggles to build trust with Americans, dismayed by her use of a private email server during her tenure as the Secretary of State and acceptance of six and seven figure paychecks for corporate speaking engagements failed to galvanize independent voters to her cause, the Wall Street Journal stated.

An America that just eight years ago had pioneered the arrival of its first African-American President fell just short of rallying to elect its first female to the office, instead electing a man whose derogatory remarks toward women have been widely recorded and scrutinized. Many felt that such talk would disqualify a presidential candidate from taking office.

Healthcare, immigration, abortion, the economy, ISIS, relations with America’s allies and economic partners were only some of the most pressing matters for voters, according to Politico. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump said he was reconsidering his stance on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act after his meeting with President Obama. Trump’s stance on immigration has continued to develop as well. He told CBS on “60 Minutes” he plans to deport or incarcerate up to 3 million undocumented immigrants. He also said his promised wall may include “some fencing.” “For certain areas I would [build fencing], but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said. “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction.”