[media-credit name=”Courtesy of Joe Simmons” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]

Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein has raised over $7 million to fund a recount of the presidental election in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, despite receiving zero electoral votes.

Stein received just over one percent of the popular vote and doubled the $3.5 million she raised for her presidential campaign.
James Simmons, a political science professor at UW Oshkosh, said the Green Party generally has problems with the United States’ electoral system thinking it’s flawed and are trying to get more people to talk about the Green Party.

“I think that the recount is someway they can draw attention to the issues that they have,” Simmons said. “Plus the greens are generally, on most issues, close to the democrats.”

Senior Karolina Baca said she likes the idea of Jill Stein organizing a recount and there is nothing wrong with double checking.
“She has the right to do it,” Baca said. “So if she believes there is a chance of suspicious activity going on that she wants to double check, she should have the right to do that.”

UWO student Lauren Slusarski said the recount should be done by hand.

“Being as the error fell with the computers, I think it’s stupid to just recount on the computer, I think they should do a hand recount,” Slusarski said. “Because computers can be manipulated and were.”

Simmons said there would have to have been a big mistake to make the recount matter in Wisconsin and shift where the state’s votes actually went.

“Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 to 23,000 votes, now it would be unusual to find that a recount shift that many votes,” Simmons said.

According to Simmons, the recount is a good idea because no matter the turnout, it’s good for the voting system.

“If the recount produces the same numbers or nearly the same numbers as election night, that reaffirms that the process is working well,” Simmons said. “On the other hand, if it shows that there are flaws in the system we ought to know about it. Does it affect the outcome? Unlikely.”