April 9, 2017
From the inception of the recount efforts, we made it clear that we were committed to ensuring the integrity of the elections, and that we were not trying to change the outcome.
In that spirit, we are continuing to fight for voting justice in federal court. Here is a link to our latest brief.
In essence, our case challenges the unfairness of Pennsylvania’s election system as a whole. Forcing voters to use unreliable machines that don’t work, and then preventing voters from taking meaningful steps to ensure that their votes count, is simply not fair. The Constitution protects not just the right to vote, but the right to have your vote count.
Actual PA voters swear that they were disenfranchised in this year’s election in Pennsylvania. They tried to vote for candidates, but they saw the machines record a “No Vote” instead. When they tried to ask for a recount, they were turned away by an unfair system. We are standing up for the principle that every vote counts. Unfortunately Pennsylvania’s top election officials do not seem to agree.
On paper, Pennsylvania gives voters the right to seek a recount, but that is an illusion. Voters have to round up tens of thousands of signatures in precincts across the entire state. Courts hit them with prohibitively high fees. The deadline is different in every county, and no one – not even the State’s highest election officials – knows when the deadlines fall. It is an impossible task, and the State is not allowed to give its citizens the right to do something but then make it impossible in practice.
The State claims that we are the wrong people to bring this lawsuit. But if disenfranchised voters and a presidential candidate whose votes were not counted accurately are the wrong people to challenge the fairness of an election system, who is the right person? The State would prefer that no one raise this issue at all.
We are proud of the general election campaign that we ran, we are proud of the the Recount demands that we made, and we are proud to continue the fight in federal court.