Michigan’s fee to recount election votes would double if a losing candidate is down by more than 5 percentage points under legislation approved Tuesday by the state Senate in response to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s recount bid last fall. The bill would increase the fee from $125 per precinct to $250. It would stay at $125 if the margin is 5 points or less and remain at $25 if it is under half of a point. Stein sought the recount despite winning 1 percent of the vote, questioning the accuracy of the vote and suggesting, without evidence, that votes were susceptible to hacking.
Supporters of the legislation said the recount by Stein, which covered more than 40 percent of the statewide vote before courts stopped it, showed the fee is too low to cover costs, particularly in a statewide recount. She also mounted recounts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, other states where Republican Donald Trump narrowly defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“You had to draw the line somewhere with regard to the costs associated,” said Sen. Dave Robertson, a Grand Blanc Republican and the bill sponsor. “We wanted to obviously preserve the rights of individuals to engage in recounts. But we wanted to accurately reflect the costs associated with a recount.”
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