Philadelphia Will Get a Partial Presidential Vote Recount

Election officials in Philadelphia will recount presidential votes in 75 of the county’s 1,686 precincts — or in less than five percent of precincts.

It’s a small success for Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her supporters, who are urging a presidential vote recount in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, citing possible cyberattacks on electronic voting machines. Stein’s campaign has raised millions of dollars to fund recount efforts after some experts first speculated about possible voting interferences in the three states.

The city’s Board of Elections approved 75 of the 82 voter petitions it received, but will not conduct a forensic audit to analyze election software for possible hacking or malware, as the Stein campaign had requested.

The campaign’s petition for a judge-ordered statewide recount will get a hearing in Commonwealth Court on Monday in what will be the biggest determination for the future of the campaign’s efforts in Pennsylvania. The Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Donald Trump campaign have filed in state court to stop the lawsuit, following in the footsteps of Michigan’s attorney general, Billy Penn reports. Clinton lost to Trump in Pennsylvania by just 46,000 votes, according to data from Decision Desk HQ.

Counties across the state have received recount petitions. Yesterday, a Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge dismissed the Stein campaign’s plea for a recount without explanation. A recent recount in Lehigh County discovered three uncounted votes for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but officials said data matched what was “reported on election night more or less exactly,” according to the Morning Call.

Republicans — and some Democrats — are denouncing pleas for vote recounts. During an interview yesterday, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said that the Stein campaign’s effort is a “big waste of time,” according to the Associated Press.

Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason reportedly called the push for a recount “a desperate act” and a “sad commentary on the failure of some to accept the results of the will of the people as reflected by their votes.”

Follow @ClaireSasko on Twitter.