Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyers will participate in recount efforts initiated by Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who recently suggested the presidential election may have been tainted by voter fraud.
Experts pointed us towards WI, PA, & MI as the largest chance of fraud, but we would support efforts elsewhere to uphold election integrity. https://t.co/CypfEBc8Qn
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) November 28, 2016
Marc Elias, general counsel for the Clinton campaign, announced Saturday that his team has been working with experts to “discuss and review” the election results, and will join Stein’s recount effort in Wisconsin, and potentially in Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Stein has also promised to pursue recounts.
“The campaign is grateful to all those who have expended time and effort to investigate various claims of abnormalities and irregularities,” Elias wrote, while acknowledging such efforts were unlikely to change the result of the election.
Former Obama administration staffers such as Dan Pfeiffer have criticized the recount effort as a waste of time and Democratic resources.
The amount of Democratic energy and money being wasted on recounts instead of trying to win the Louisiana Senate Race is mind boggling
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) November 24, 2016
President-elect Donald Trump has denounced them as a “scam.”
The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated & demoralized Dems
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016
Critics of the Democratic Party’s reluctance to accept the results of the election have pointed out that, during the campaign, Hillary Clinton was very critical of those, including Trump, who suggested voter fraud or other factors could possibly alter to the results of “free and fair elections.”
During the third presidential debate on October 19, after Trump said he wouldn’t commit to accepting the election result, but would consider it “at the time,” Clinton said she was “appalled” that her opponent would make such a “horrifying” suggestion.
“That is not the way our democracy works,” Clinton said. “We’ve been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them.”
According a recent report, the Clinton campaign was reluctant to concede on election night, despite a call from President Obama urging Hillary to call Trump and offer her concession. She ultimately heeded that advice.
“Just give me the phone,” Clinton reportedly said. “I’m calling him.”
TAKE THE POLL
