Green Party-backed lawyers moved their fight for a recount of Pennsylvania’s Nov. 8 presidential election results to federal court Monday, hoping the new venue and a last-minute shift in strategy would favor their push for an audit of the state’s nearly 24,000 voting machines. Calling Pennsylvania’s election system a “national disgrace” reliant upon outdated technology, the lawyers urged a Philadelphia judge to order a statewide recount and a forensic examination of a sample set of the machines. Both steps, the lawyers said in their complaint, are necessary to determine if hackers manipulated the state’s election results. They offered no evidence to suggest any manipulation had occurred. “Voters are forced to use vulnerable, hackable, antiquated technology banned in other states, then rely on the kindness of machines. There is no paper trail,” lawyers Ilann M. Maazel and Gregory Harvey wrote in the filing. “A majority of machines voted for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. But who did the people vote for?”
The complaint came days after lawyers withdrew a similar suit from Commonwealth Court, saying the 200 voters it represented could not come up with the required $1 million bond to pursue their challenge. But with just over a week to go before the federal deadline for resolving election disputes, time may be running out.
U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond did not indicate Monday if he would grant a hearing. Federal election law requires that election disputes be resolved before Dec. 13, six days before the Electoral College is to meet.
The Pennsylvania Department of State declined to comment on the suit. But the state’s top election official, Pedro Cortes, has said there is “no evidence whatsoever” of voting irregularities in Pennsylvania.
Full Article: Stein lawyers take Pa. recount battle to federal court.