Ed Morrissey:
The Michigan recount may be over before it really got started. Attorney General Bill Schuette won his argument at the Michigan Court of Appeals that Jill Stein, who finished a distant fourth in the presidential election, does not qualify as an “aggrieved” party since a recount has no chance of winning the election, recount or not. Thanks to a clause in the federal ruling, this could put an end to the Michigan recount:
The State Court of Appeals has encouraged the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to reject Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s recount petition, marking the latest turn in a flurry of legal drama over the recount.
The ruling comes after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 2-1 decision U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith’s Monday ruling allowing the recount to proceed immediately. In that ruling, the federal court determined the order issued by Goldsmith could be dismissed if state courts ruled the recount to be out of order with state law.
Following the state court ruling, Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a statement he would file a motion in federal court seeking to dissolve the temporary restraining order.
The court ruling explicitly rejected the argument from Stein’s attorney that she qualified as an aggrieved party in the outcome. It then went further and scolded the Board of State Canvassers, ruling that they had a duty to reject Stein’s recount demand and had failed by not doing so. The board meets tomorrow at 9:30 am ET, at which point Schuette will ask them to comply.
Schuette celebrated his win on Twitter:
The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed that Jill Stein is not an aggrieved candidate and the recount must stop.
— Bill Schuette (@SchuetteOnDuty) December 7, 2016
Prior to this, most assumed that the state courts wouldn’t have much impact on the process after the federal district court ordered the recount to start immediately. That changed when Schuette appealed; they apparently narrowed the decision to just the two-day delay before the start, leaving open the central question of whether the recount was appropriate. (Recall that the federal judge in the original ruling ordered the recount to continue once started unless he ordered a halt to it.) Of course, the Stein campaign will appeal this to the state Supreme Court, but Schuette has precedent on his side for the argument over an “aggrieved” status. Meanwhile, the recount will likely come to halt.
Interestingly, Stein’s lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania has been scheduled for Friday. That doesn’t exactly bode well for Stein; if the judge was inclined to intervene in Pennsylvania’s process, he’d be more likely to do so immediately.
Enough is enough time to end this nonsense and get back to the coming holidays and the ingagartion and if you little snowflakes cant hack it then Leave
If it were nonsense, Trump operatives and their lawyers wouldn’t have instantly sprung into action in every relevant state in an all out effort to block it. They would have let Stein’s request proceed, proving the original results were entirely accurate, and then stuck her with responsibility for any costs exceeding the amounts she raised. Now there will always be a lingering doubt.
The dr., jill stein, will never amass enough of a vote differential, post election results, to validate the need for a recount. Even for mrs Clinton, the recounts have not made a significant difference, thus the recount is not necessary.
The recount now having proven to be unnecessary, begs the question, why? This was nothing more than an effort to delegitimize the actual election results. If the delay in the recount prevented the electors from certifying the results by 19 December, that would possible put the election into the House of Representatives and the Senate creating the impression of a faulty election.
The left would like to have a means to oppose Trump by saying he was selected, not elected. Yes, this nonsense needs to end and should have never been started.
@Greg: @Greg: Your line of reasoning has always roved to be quite defective. I have always attribute that to ignorance or radical ideologies. Every day you convince me that your irrelevant posts are a result mental issues or lack of intelligence. Did you ever think that Trump actually is concerned about how ta payer dollars are spent? I know liberals do not care, but maybe Trump does.
Hey i just read that Jill Stein has made a total fool of herself with this rediclous attempt for a unwarnted recount Look and the baffoon walk into the wall SPLAT then trip on a sparrow Ker Flop,then all in a manhole SPLASH
When it was discovered that some Detroit, Michigan votes were counted 6 times, those precincts were dropped from Jill’s recount list!
I guess she forgot the FLA – USA SCOTUS case, Gore V Bush.
You cannot cherry pick precincts for your recount efforts.
@July 4th American:
Had the recounts proceeded and confirmed the accuracy of the original count, there would have been no basis for any “selected, not elected” claim, would there?
That possibility of error, however remote, would have been definitively eliminated, and the blame for any unnecessary costs and bother could have all been laid on Jill Stein. So, what was the problem?
That’s the sort of totally obvious question that seems to get dodged with increasing frequency lately. I’ve got a feeling doing so is going to become part of the routine.
@Greg:
You missed the entire point:
The point is that if should the three states involved were to miss the appointment of their states electors on 19 December, those electors would not be in the final count of electors potentially putting Trump’s electoral count below 270. It presumes the recount would take more time than is allowed by the requirement to appoint electors by the 19 December date.
The argument that somehow the recounting of just these three state, regardless of the votes differentials changing the November 8 results, will in some way, reassure the peoples confidence in voting integrity, is a specious argument at best.
BTW, it is now a moot point….