Watch one minute of this press conference and you’ll wonder how Stein managed to get even 1% of the vote…
Officially, history will record President-elect Donald Trump as having won the 2016 presidential race in Michigan by some 10,704 votes.
But Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate in the 2016 election, believes that the numbers would be different if all 4.8 million votes cast in the Wolverine State were recounted.
That won’t happen, Stein conceded in a rally in downtown Detroit on Saturday, a day after the non-recused members of the Michigan Supreme Court ruled, by a 3-2 margin, against Stein’s appeal, leaving the candidate with no recourse.
“We may be moving out of the court of law, but we’re moving into the court of public opinion,” Stein said.
The rally lasted about 40 minutes in freezing temperatures, and attracted dozens of the candidate’s supporters. It took place near the foot of a street named ceremonially for Congressman John Conyers, Washington Boulevard.
Bell, a Green Party member who helped supervise the vote-counting effort at Cobo, became emotional several times during her brief remarks, during which she called the election system in Michigan “a flaming hot mess,” a language Stein would herself adopt. Even if the results of the 2016 election won’t change, and even if there won’t be a full recount in Michigan, Stein said, the state needs election reform.
Bell called out voting irregularities she’d learned of, like how a polling place in Ionia County allegedly used a garbage can as a ballot box, or one in Gibraltar that sealed a ballot box with mere duct tape, or a precinct in Detroit that tabulated 300 votes but only 50 were found in the box.
“Hot mess! Hot mess!” Bell said before handing the microphone to Stein.
“Count every vote, and make sure every vote counts,” Stein said. “This dysfunction in our elections flows downhill. It flows to communities that do not have resources…The equipment that’s used is prone to break. And it’s not just the 87 scanners that failed in Detroit on Election Day.”
What raised a “red flag” in Michigan, Stein said, was the 75,000 ballots cast without also making a choice in the presidential race.
