Posted on 12/09/2016 11:41:16 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Two pro-Trump groups hoped to get a federal judge to end Wisconsin’s recount early, but Judge James Peterson put an end to those hopes rather quickly. The Associated Press had barely even reported the challenge when Peterson declined to intervene. The issue will become moot soon enough anyway:
A federal judge will on Friday consider halting Wisconsin’s presidential recount.
President-elect Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by more than 22,000 votes in the state. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein requested the recount to determine if election machines were hacked.
Two pro-Trump groups, the Great America PAC and the Stop Hillary PAC, filed a federal lawsuit Dec. 1, the day the recount began, seeking to stop the process. Judge James Peterson will hear arguments in Madison.
Not long after, Great America PAC lamented Peterson’s quick rejection in this press statement:
Today, U.S. District Court Judge James D. Peterson denied an injunction sought by Great America PAC, The Committee to Defend the President (formerly known as Stop Hillary PAC) and Ronald R. Johnson to end Green Party US candidate Jill Stein’s pointless recount in Wisconsin. In doing so, however, Judge Peterson interpreted the law to clearly prevent the inevitable frivolous appeal of the recount by Stein from disrupting the safe harbor for Wisconsin’s electoral votes for President Elect Donald Trump. Eric Beach, Co-Chairman of Great America PAC, stated, “Hopefully Miss Stein’s sham fundraising will end, and we can get about the business of making America great again,” Beach continued, “Stein has shown no compunction about endangering other’s right to vote and be counted to server her own financial benefit, and while the recount will continue, Stein will not be able to further endanger Wisconsin voters.”
We applaud and thank Wisconsin for doing a great job on the recount. They are on target to finish this recount on time and have shone a bright light on how pointless #CrookedJill’s flim-flam recount was in the first place; having resulted in almost no change to President-elect Donald Trump’s lead in the state, and hardly little gain by Democrat Hillary Clinton or Jill Stein, except for her checkbook.
Great America PAC, The Committee to Defend the President, and Mr. Johnson would like to express their thanks to the many recount workers who are being inconvenienced to focus on this pointless recount, and would also like to thank their supporters for making these lawsuits possible with their continued support.
Peterson got his appointment to the bench from Barack Obama, for what it’s worth, but don’t blame that for the decision. The suit raised equal-treatment concerns along with arguments from Bush v Gore about the risk to the safe-harbor deadline and disenfranchising all Wisconsin voters. The latter issue is a question for the state courts, as well as the state, which can certify electors at any time even with an active recount. The former is actually Stein’s argument for doing a statewide hand recount.
Two other facts almost certainly contributed to a quick end to the injunction request. If the judge was inclined to intervene, he would have scheduled this hearing before the state spent millions of dollars on eight-plus days of recounting. The recount is now almost entirely done; according to the Day 8 results posted yesterday on the state’s website, precincts that reported 77.64% of Election Night results have fully completed their recounts, and that does not include results from Day 9 or today. The net change in ballots overall as of the end of Day 8 is 1,221 ballots, or 0.0535% of the overall vote thus far. The net change in the 22,617-vote lead for Trump with more than 3/4s of the recount done is … 61 votes for Hillary Clinton.
Under those circumstances, any federal judge regardless of which president appointed them would let the recount continue in accordance with state court decisions. Wisconsin can certify their electors based on Election Night results if the recount threatens to still be ongoing by Tuesday’s safe-harbor deadline, but it looks like they’ll finish up tomorrow or Sunday at the latest anyway.
Meanwhile, Jill Stein’s campaign has appealed to the state Supreme Court to get that recount back underway — and won on a recusal demand today:
Two of Michigan’s Supreme Court justices — Robert Young and Joan Larsen — have recused themselves from considering a case involving the recount of nearly 4.8 million ballots cast for president in November.
The two are included on a list of potential appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court that president-elect Donald Trump revealed before the election. And while both said they were reluctant to recuse themselves from the case, they decided to so any decision the court might come to in the case couldn’t be open to appeal because they stayed on.
That leaves five justices on the court, but three of those are Republicans. The court has not decided to take up the case yet, nor is there any indication they will. The recusals from both Young and Larsen were made to limit the political drama surrounding the case, but Young wasn’t happy about the need to do so:
“As I have previously stated, anybody can make a list. In this regard, after serving as a jurist for 21 years, 18 on this court, I fully acknowledge that, at the age of 65, the probability of my being selected and appointed from the president-elect’s infamous list of United States Supreme Court potential appointees is extraordinarily remote,” he said. …
“Now more than ever, a bit of judicial restraint is required to resist the calls of political sirens who urge the courts to engage in politics by another name,” he said. “I do so in order that the decision made by my colleagues in this case will not be legitimately challenged by base speculation and groundless innuendo by the partisans in this controversy and beyond.”
There might be more at stake in Michigan, where the Supreme Court there could decide to take on the issue of “aggrieved” status to set precedent, but that still seems unlikely. They could do that simply by refusing to take up the appeal, endorsing the appellate court ruling on that issue. The most likely scenario is that Wisconsin finishes while Michigan and Pennsylvania don’t restart, but … any time these cases go to court, surprises happen. Stay tuned.
LS wrote:
“Keyine: “WI can certify its electors bu the safe harbor deadline of Dec. 13.””
See:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3503138/posts?page=29#29
And they will be Trump electors, not illary’s.
No ‘extra’ boxes would be found in Milwaukee, because they were accounted for & counted already.
H/t billyboy15.
Conspiring to disenfranchise Wisconsin?
WHich law do you say he “made”?
In fact, he upheld the Wisconsin state law made by their legislature that says anyone who pays the money can have a recount. Period. Stein paid, therefore she gets her recount.
Her fundraising has nothing to do with the recount, that’s between her and her donors (and whatever regulatory agencies may be involved).
The judge did the right thing. The legislature will likely change the law now to preclude any future Steins who have no chance of winning from getting a recount even if they pay for it. But that would be a new law, made by the people who make laws, as it should be.
Will not happen.
“The total number of ballots counted stands at 2,635,670 which is approximately 88.58% of the total ballots cast for President (3,975,313),” the Election Commission reported for day 9.
“””A box with 25K previously uncounted Hillary ballots will turn up... then what? “””
Exactly
So much crap.
The vote count as of the latest recount spreadsheet is
2635374. Divided by about 2.9 million and this is about 91%. The number of counties / precincts as a % of the total will vary slightly from that, but in general 90% done.
City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County ward 34 continues to show an apparent typo, with the recount adding 100+ Trump votes. Likely the original cell is typo’ed on that.
In general, there is no sign of any cheating at any stage of the process. All you guys saying you heard this and you heard that can just forget what you heard and download the spreadsheet here: http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/recount/2016-presidential
Analyze it and draw your own conclusions.
If there were cheating of any significant magnitude, we would have seen it by now. If you watch the vids of the real time recount, you would see this is a bunch of retirees just trying to get it right.
Quite a bit of city of Madison is now on the spreadsheet as recounted. These are overwhelming Hillary areas. Ward 40 was Hillary 2067 Trump 97. The recount of that ward was Hillary 2067 Trump 97. No change. Overwhelming Hillary county and no change. There’s just no sign of these bizarre cheating rumors about Hillary losing 1000s of votes in the recount.
That rumor was before absentees were REcounted.
Bottom line, this state will finish on time and it will not move the vote.
A lawsuit(s) for the Ages.
Much better to have it finish and etch in stone the Trump win.
Yeah, but let's count it again. Maybe a mistake was made both times. Maybe it's Hillary 7602 to Trump 79. How about that, maybe? Let's do it again and be more careful this time, OK?
Point taken. In the mean time, it will make a great SNL skit.
They would need to authenticate each vote. But, it won’t happen.
Why haven’t they been cheating?
Because the overwhelming WI population is of the Caucasion Persuasion. And few to none working for the Supervisor of Elections happen to be prior felons. Therefore, they are NOT willing to assume the risk of a lock-up to win an election.
Judge made the correct call, either we want the feds interfering with local elections or we don’t. Wisconsin state law says she is allowed to ask if she pays, Feds should have nothing to do with it.
It's over. Trump won the WH and WI. Only a complete idiot would believe otherwise. I am surprised at the naivete or stupidity of some of my fellow Freepers who take this recount as a threat to Trump's victory seriously. It is only being done to de-legitimize Trump's win and to tarnish his victory. Stein and the Dems must be enjoying the angst of some Trump supporters who think that Hillary can still change the outcome of the election with these recounts. Enjoy the victory and laugh at these ridiculous recounts. I am looking forward to Inauguration Day.
I'll feel much better after Trump's finished running through this gauntlet of lawyers and judges. Adding to the misery is the fact that the MSM is now full-on assault mode against Trump day and night, and Obama is joining the party with his race baiting and calls for investigations into "Russian interference". Who knows what other plans he has to derail this... I'm sure he's got several devious plots in the planning stages.
For Obama, a Trump win means a possible loss of his own stature at a minimum, and possibly much worse if his past deeds are uncovered. There's a lot at stake here for many people in the insiders' club... which is a very big club.
Buck up. Enjoy the victory and ignore all of this, which is meant to engender the kind of "misery" that you seem to be experiencing. These are the reactions of losers, not winners.
“A box with 25K previously uncounted Hillary ballots will turn up... then what?”
Puleeze. If they could get away with that they would have done so election night.
Always someone pushing a worst case scenario so we can light our hair on fire & dance in a circle.
I'm sure they did (we know they tried in Ft. Lauderdale), but they underestimated the number of Trump votes that would also come in.
hahaha, lol
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