Trump Calls Stein's Recount Efforts A "Scam" For Money
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NEW YORK (CBSMiami) -- "The people have spoken and the election is over," retorted President-elect Donald J. Trump in direct response to the Green Party's Jill Stein and her attempts to force an election results recount in three key states.
Stein formally requested the recount in Wisconsin Friday and said she plans to do the same in Pennsylvania and Michigan -- to investigate whether electronic voting machines were hacked or compromised.
Trump narrowly won those three reliably Democratic strongholds.
"There were lots of hacks taking place around this election," Stein said during an interview from Camden, Maine. "Hacks into voter databases, into party databases, into individual email accounts."
She added that not only are some of the voting equipment around the country unreliable, but state governments have lost trust in certain machines over the years.
"It basically invites hacks and malfeasance, tampering, human error, et cetera. Some of the voting machines in use in Wisconsin, for example, have actually been prohibited in the state of California because they've basically been proven to be wide open to tampering," Stein said.
Stein went on to admit that there isn't any actual hard evidence of manipulation, however. Instead, she's asking for reassurances. "I think it's only natural and it's good for Americans to be reassured that our votes are counted," she said.
Following the request, Wisconsin officials are moving forward with the first presidential recount in state history. Stein has raised roughly $4.5 million to pay for it.
"The fact that it has basically funded itself overnight reflects the incredible hunger out there among the American people to actually start doing something positive and to start creating an election system that we can believe in," she said.
Trump said he sees through the ruse.
"This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn't even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount," Trump said. "All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes."
Trump recalled opponent Hillary Clinton's concession speech following her defeat.
"As Hillary Clinton herself said on election night, in addition to her conceding by congratulating me, 'We must accept this result and then look to the future,'" he said.
But now that there seems to be some movement, the Clinton campaign is joining in the recount effort.
"Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves," blogged Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias. "But now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides."
Elias continued to say that they would take the same approach in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Despite Clinton winning the popular vote, ultimately an irrelevant fact, the numbers speak for themselves.
"We won 306 electoral votes on Election Day – the most of any Republican since 1988 – and we carried nine of 13 battleground states, 30 of 50 states, and more than 2,600 counties nationwide – the most since President Ronald Reagan in 1984," Trump said.
In typical fashion, Trump's parting words summarized his statements succinctly.
"This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing."
