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Green Party drops recount case in Pennsylvania

by Paulina Firozi - 12/03/16 7:07 PM ET

The Green Party is dropping its court case requesting a statewide recount of the election results in Pennsylvania.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday that the party said it could not come up with a $1 million bond payment required by Monday, when a hearing was scheduled.

A court order filed Saturday called the matter “closed” after it said that petitioners had filed to withdraw the case. The Green Party had questioned whether voting machines had been hacked or results manipulated.

{mosads}Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who has been leading the broader recount effort, is scheduled to hold a rally outside of Trump Tower on Monday to defend her push for a recount.

Pennsylvania was among three traditionally blue states, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Stein had pushed for recounts. President-elect Donald Trump won with a slim margin over Hillary Clinton in each of the states.

Stein seemingly addressed the lack of funds to continue the recount case in Pennsylvania in a tweet Saturday evening, calling the $1 million payment “odd.”

How odd is it that we must jump through bureaucratic hoops and raise millions of dollars so we can trust our election results? #Recount2016

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 4, 2016

Republicans in Pennsylvania used the news Saturday to slam the recount effort as a bid to secure “media attention.”

The Pennsylvania GOP said in a statement that “the actions of Ms. Stein and her supporters to create the fear of chaos by making baseless accusations of the hacking of voting machines in Pennsylvania were an insult to all Pennsylvania voters.”

Trump’s lawyers had filed this week to block the recount effort, as the president-elect and his allies did in the other states.

“Despite being no more than a blip on the electoral radar, Stein has now commandeered Pennsylvania’s electoral process, with an eye toward doing the same to the Electoral College,” read the complaint filed by Trump’s attorneys.

According to Stein’s website, as of Saturday she had raised nearly $7 million for the recount effort in the three states. Her campaign expected an estimated $500,000 in filing fees in Pennsylvania, along with attorneys fees.

Trump called Stein’s push for a recount a “scam.” He accused her of using it to raise money for her campaign, which said that raised funds were going into an account separate from her campaign treasury.

“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,” Trump said in a statement last week.

“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.”

Updated: 7:45 p.m.

Tags Donald Trump Hillary Clinton