In yet another surprise of this election season, a candidate with no chance to gain any electoral college votes called for a recount in three states. Here's what you need to know about this sudden recount.
1. Jill Stein is calling for it.
That's right, Green Party Candidate Jill Stein is calling for the recount. A woman who received only about one percent of the vote has nothing to win in calling for a recount because she's going to have to foot the bill of nearly seven million dollars. Which she is doing the same way she ran her campaign, she's running a grassroots campaign for it. Since the results won't come out in her favor, she has to pay for the recount.
2. She's only calling for a recount in three states.
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. These are three key battleground states that Trump won by a very thin margin. All three of these states use electronic ballots with no paper trail, so that means these machines are suspect to tampering, malware, and glitches.
3. The systems have been hacked before.
There is actually a basis for this because people have hacked into voting databases and is even said to not be that hard. This is important because there was also some statistical anomalies in these states, which is why Stein is calling for a recount in those three states.
4. She can't do it in other states like Florida.
She didn't just pick and choose these states. Some states she can't file for a recount because she wasn't on the ballot. One of the rules for filing a recount is that the people filing have to be on the ballot. There are other states she can't file for a recount in because the date to file has passed.
5. Hillary Clinton just jumped onto this recently.
This has been mostly done by Stein, not Clinton, even though experts across the country have been encouraging Clinton to call for a recount. Trump's opinion is that it is all a scam.
6. These states could be a tipping point.
If there actually has been a problem with the ballots in these states and they tip to Hillary Clinton, she would win the electoral college if they voted with their states. The current standing is Trump at 290 and Clinton at 232 with Michigan still in the air. If the three states were found to have issues and move it Clinton, she would gain 16 in Michigan, 10 in Wisconsin, and 20 in Pennsylvania. That's 46 votes which would put Clinton at 278 and Trump at 260.
So if you were wondering if the recount could be a big deal, it could change the whole election.
