Listening and Responding To Calls for an Audit and Recount
Over the last few days, officials in the Clinton campaign
have received hundreds of messages, emails, and calls urging us to do
something, anything, to investigate claims that the election results were
hacked and altered in a way to disadvantage Secretary Clinton. The concerns
have arisen, in particular, with respect to Michigan, Wisconsin and
Pennsylvania — three states that together proved decisive in this presidential
election and where the combined margin of victory for Donald Trump was merely
107,000 votes.
It should go without saying that we take these concerns
extremely seriously. We certainly understand the heartbreak felt by so many who
worked so hard to elect Hillary Clinton, and it is a fundamental principle of
our democracy to ensure that every vote is properly counted.
Moreover, this election cycle was unique in the degree of
foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign: the U.S. government
concluded that Russian state actors were behind the hacks of the Democratic
National Committee and the personal email accounts of Hillary for America
campaign officials, and just yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the
Russian government was behind much of the “fake news” propaganda that
circulated online in the closing weeks of the election.
For all these reasons, we have quietly taken a number of
steps in the last two weeks to rule in or out any possibility of outside
interference in the vote tally in these critical battleground states.
First, since the day after the election we have had lawyers and
data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that
would suggest a hacked result. These have included analysts both from within
the campaign and outside, with backgrounds in politics, technology and
academia.
Second, we have had numerous meetings and calls with various
outside experts to hear their concerns and to discuss and review their data and
findings. As a part of this, we have also shared out data and findings with
them. Most of those discussions have remained private, while at least one has
unfortunately been the subject of leaks.
Third, we have attempted to systematically catalogue and
investigate every theory that has been presented to us within our ability to do
so.
Fourth, we have examined the laws and practices as they
pertain to recounts, contests and audits.
Fifth, and most importantly, we have monitored and staffed
the post-election canvasses — where voting machine tapes are compared to
poll-books, provisional ballots are resolved, and all of the math is double checked
from election night. During that process, we have seen Secretary Clinton’s vote
total grow, so that, today, her national popular vote lead now exceeds more
than 2 million votes.
In the coming days, we will continue to perform our due
diligence and actively follow all further activities that are to occur prior to
the certification of any election results. For instance, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania
conduct post-election audits using a sampling of precincts. Michigan and many
other states still do not. This is unfortunate; it is our strong belief that,
in addition to an election canvass, every state should do this basic audit to
ensure accuracy and public confidence in the election.
Beyond the post-election audit, Green Party candidate Jill
Stein announced Friday that she will exercise her right as a candidate to
pursue a recount in the state of Wisconsin. She has indicated plans to also
seek recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
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, 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. If Jill Stein follows through as she has
promised and pursues recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, we will take the
same approach in those states as well. We do so fully aware that the number of
votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these
states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount.
But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we
feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally
represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to
monitor the recount process itself.
The campaign is grateful to all those who have expended time
and effort to investigate various claims of abnormalities and irregularities.
While that effort has not, in our view, resulted in evidence of manipulation of
results, now that a recount is underway, we believe we have an obligation to
the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to
participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will
be reported.
Marc Erik Elias
Law and Politics
According to attorney Marc Erik Elias, the campaign has been reviewing their options since the loss to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, including allegations of tampering.
“It should go without saying that we take these concerns extremely seriously. We certainly understand the heartbreak felt by so many who worked so hard to elect Hillary Clinton, and it is a fundamental principle of our democracy to ensure that every vote is properly counted,” he wrote. “Since the day after the election we have had lawyers and data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that would suggest a hacked result. These have included analysts both from within the campaign and outside, with backgrounds in politics, technology and academia.”
Outlining the steps they taken, Elias wrote that, while they have not uncovered “actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology,” the success of Green Party candidate Jill Stein to successfully launch a recount in Wisconsin has made them reconsider joining in.
“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. If Jill Stein follows through as she has promised and pursues recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan, we will take the same approach in those states as well,” Elias wrote. “We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount. But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.”
Elias added: “We believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported.
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