WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Stein is on track to raise twice as much for an election recount effort than she did for her own failed Green Party presidential bid.

Fueled by the social media hashtag #recount2016 and millions of dispirited Hillary Clinton voters, Stein’s recount drive had already netted $6.3 million by Monday, according to her campaign website. That’s close to the $7 million she posted as a goal and millions more than the roughly $3.5 million she raised during her entire presidential bid.

Citing without evidence concerns about “cyber hacking,” Stein wants a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — places that Clinton, a Democrat, thought were safely in her column. Instead, Republican Donald Trump won all three and with them the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Stein won no states and wouldn’t directly or immediately benefit from a recount — nor would she likely be able to topple Trump. Even Clinton’s attorney Marc Elias wrote there’s “no actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.”

But Stein’s effort could help her in other ways.

By continuing to raise money, she is building up a larger donor list that she can later turn to if she runs again. She also can try to influence policy by urging those donors to call lawmakers or contribute to other politicians. Her campaign says 137,000 people have contributed to the recount.

A bigger supporter list can command bigger fees if Stein chooses to lease it out to other campaigns.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, said that although recounts are “entirely within the law, Stein’s effort is probably aimed more at “trying to gain attention and establish herself as a national player.”

Stein said she is “proud to stand up for election integrity” regardless of whether it changes the outcome of the presidential race. If she raises more money than is needed for the recount itself — including multimillion-dollar attorney fees — her campaign will use the surplus for “election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”

Stein has reminded supporters that they can contribute up to $2,700 for her recount drive — even if they’d already donated the maximum $2,700 to her for the general election. Any money she raises in excess of the actual recount costs could then be donated to charity or to a political party, according to Federal Election Commission rulings.

“The money can’t be used for her personal benefit, but beyond that there’s some flexibility,” said Bob Biersack, who worked at the FEC for three decades and is a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

The recount itself could be costly.

The Stein campaign filed its Wisconsin recount petition on Friday and aimed to file Monday in Pennsylvania. The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted Monday to proceed with a recount and will bill Stein and other interested campaigns for the costs, estimated to be around $1 million.

Trump denounced the Stein recount effort as “ridiculous” and “a scam.”

It’s a way for Stein “to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” the president-elect said in a statement Saturday.

Yet he has seemed to undercut his own argument that the election is over by going on to question the integrity of the vote.

Trump falsely claimed on Twitter early Sunday that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” and went on — again with no evidence — to claim “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.”

Tribe noted the irony of Trump blasting Stein’s recount effort while falsely asserting voter fraud has occurred.

“Those two statements are diametrically opposed,” Tribe said.

Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report</s>Recount requests filed by the Green Party's Jill Stein continue to gain momentum in key swing states as her campaign raises millions in a matter of days.

Stein said she plans to request a recount in Michigan over its 16 electoral votes as similar cases progress in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Donald Trump was the apparent winner in all three states, defeating Hillary Clinton by margins in the range of tens of thousands of votes.

While the effort has raised more than $6 million, Stein's campaign said in a statement the average donation was about $46.

The recounts would not change the election outcome for Stein, who finished fourth behind Libertarian Gary Johnson, but there is a very small chance they could flip the states for Clinton.

That result remains highly unlikely, as the Democrat would need to overcome Trump's winning margins in all three states to wrest the Electoral College majority from him. Clinton currently leads Trump by more than 2 million in the popular vote, according to an ongoing count by the Cook Political Report.

Clinton's campaign has said it will participate in the recount in Wisconsin while Trump claims the process is a "scam."

In a Monday statement, Stein's campaign said, "The recount funds are being held in a dedicated account, separate from Stein's Presidential campaign treasury, and will be used to pay for all costs associated with the recounts, including required payments to states, lawyers, volunteer recruitment and other technical assistance."

Below is the latest on the recounts:</s>WASHINGTON — Jill Stein is on track to raise twice as much for an election recount effort than she did for her own failed Green Party presidential bid.

Fueled by the social media hashtag #recount2016 and millions of dispirited Hillary Clinton voters, Stein's recount drive had already netted $6.3 million by Monday, according to her campaign . That's close to the $7 million she posted as a goal and millions more than the roughly $3.5 million she raised during her entire presidential bid.

Citing without evidence concerns about "cyber hacking," Stein wants a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — places that Clinton, a Democrat, thought were safely in her column. Instead, Republican Donald Trump won all three and with them the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Stein won no states and wouldn't directly or immediately benefit from a recount — nor would she likely be able to topple Trump. Even Clinton's attorney Marc Elias wrote there's "no actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology."

By continuing to raise money, she is building up a larger donor list that she can later turn to if she runs again. She also can try to influence policy by urging those donors to call lawmakers or contribute to other politicians. Her campaign says 137,000 people have contributed to the recount.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, said that although recounts are "entirely within the law, Stein's effort is probably aimed more at "trying to gain attention and establish herself as a national player."

Stein said she is "proud to stand up for election integrity" regardless of whether it changes the outcome of the presidential race. If she raises more money than is needed for the recount itself — including multimillion-dollar attorney fees — her campaign will use the surplus for "election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform."

Stein has reminded supporters that they can contribute up to $2,700 for her recount drive — even if they'd already donated the maximum $2,700 to her for the general election. Any money she raises in excess of the actual recount costs could then be donated to charity or to a political party, according to Federal Election Commission rulings.

"The money can't be used for her personal benefit, but beyond that there's some flexibility," said Bob Biersack, who worked at the FEC for three decades and is a senior fellow at the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Stein campaign filed its Wisconsin recount petition on Friday and aimed to file Monday in Pennsylvania. The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted Monday to proceed with a recount and will bill Stein and other interested campaigns for the costs, estimated to be around $1 million.

It's a way for Stein "to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount," the president-elect said in a statement Saturday.

Yet he has seemed to undercut his own argument that the election is over by going on to question the integrity of the vote.

Trump falsely claimed on Twitter early Sunday that he "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally" and went on — again with no evidence — to claim "serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California."</s>Jason Miller, communications director for President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, urged the media Monday to focus on “issues of both voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting” rather than an election recount that he dismissed as “nonsensical” and a “shiny object.”

Miller’s comments came on the transition team’s daily press call when he was asked about a series of tweets Trump sent on Sunday asserting that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” His campaign has provided no evidence for the claim, and outside experts say it has no merit.

Trump made his comments in response to news that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign is participating in a recount of the voting in Wisconsin that was requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The recount can take place with or without Clinton’s involvement, but she has the right to have observers present, and evidently intends to exercise it. Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias said the campaign would also participate in recounts of Pennsylvania and Michigan if Stein is successful in initiating them.

Stein’s recount push came after a group of computer science experts said they detected statistical anomalies in voting patterns in those states that possibly benefited Trump. Other experts have dismissed these claims and Elias has said the Clinton campaign has found no evidence of irregularities. Trump won in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Clinton would need to flip the results in all three — considered extremely unlikely — to change the outcome in the Electoral College.

On Twitter, Trump dismissed the recount as a “Green Party scam.” He went on to allege there was “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California,” all states won by Clinton. Trump is not requesting recounts in those states. His comments were widely discounted because there is no independent evidence that large numbers of people “voted illegally.” The claim seems to have originated as an Internet conspiracy theory.

During Monday’s transition team press call, Miller was asked if he had any evidence of illegal voting in the three blue states. “Thanks for bringing that up,” Miller replied, but answered instead by attacking Clinton for backing a recount. He pointed out that Clinton initially conceded the election to Trump. He added that Elias, her campaign’s general counsel, has called for North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to concede and stop contesting his reelection loss even though it was by a “much smaller margin.”

“I really do think that it’s been ridiculous that so much oxygen has been given to a recount effort where there’s absolutely no chance of any election results changing. This election has been decided. It’s a conceded election,” Miller said.

In support of Trump’s assertions, Miller cited reports of people who were improperly registered to vote — including a disputed Washington Post article from 2014 that cited data showing “more than 14 percent of noncitizens” indicated they were registered to vote in polling conducted for a study in 2008 and 2010. He also pointed to a Pew Research study from 2012 that found “approximately 24 million — one of every eight — voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate” and that “approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.”

“So, all of these are studies or examples where there have been issues of both voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting,” said Miller. “So, if this much attention and oxygen is going to be given to a completely frivolous throwaway fundraising scheme by someone like Jill Stein, then there should be actual, substantive looks at the overall examples of voter fraud and illegal immigrants voting in recent years. And so that’s the broader message that I think should be taken away here.”

Pressed by reporters, Miller did not cite any specific evidence of illegal voting, as distinguished from improper registrations. Asked if there was a chance Trump would push federal or local officials to investigate voter fraud when he takes office next January. Miller said it would be “inappropriate” for him to speculate about potential investigations, but he reiterated his view voter fraud is a “concern” that merits attention and press coverage. “Obviously, I do think that it’s an issue of concern, the fact that there’s a concern that so many … voted who were not legally supposed to,” Miller said, before adding, “I think there’s a responsibility from members of the media … to give an appropriate level of attention to some of these different concerns … as opposed to just chasing the shiny object of the Jill Stein recount effort, which is really just a way for Ms. Stein and the Green Party to make money.” Stein’s campaign claims to have raised over $6.3 million to file for recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The campaign initially said they would “need to raise about 2.5 million dollars collectively for all three states” for filing costs. Stein and her campaign have not responded to multiple requests for comment from Yahoo News about Trump’s criticism of the effort.</s>WASHINGTON — Nearly three weeks after Election Day, Michigan officials certified Monday that Donald Trump won the state by 10,704 votes out of nearly 4.8 million to claim all of its 16 electoral votes. There's more wrangling to come, though, on the final vote count for this oh-so-contentious campaign.

Jill Stein's Green Party served notice that it would petition for a Michigan recount even as her party pushed forward with recount efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump won by somewhat wider but still small margins.

Should the results for Trump hold in all three states, as expected, the president-elect would have 306 electoral votes to 232 for Democrat Hillary Clinton. It takes 270 to be elected president.

Only if the results were overturned in all three states would Clinton have a claim on the presidency, and that is widely considered to be out of the question.

If it's any consolation for Clinton — and it's probably mighty little — she's winning the national popular vote. With some votes still being counted, she is ahead by more than 2 million, about 1.5 percent of the total counted so far.

Trump, in a series of weekend tweets complaining about the Midwest recount efforts, said the Green Party was engaged in a "scam to fill up their coffers" and that "defeated & demoralized Dems" were joining in.

Stirring the post-election pot, Trump made his own unsubstantiated claim of widespread voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California, saying without evidence that he would have won the popular vote if millions of people had not voted illegally.

Stein, who won 1.4 million votes nationwide or about 1 percent of the count, signaled her determination to keep pushing the Midwest recount efforts, saying that "Americans deserve a voting system we can trust." As of Monday, she had raised $6.2 million to finance recounts, according to her campaign website.

"After a presidential election tarnished by the use of outdated and unreliable machines and accusations of irregularities and hacks, people of all political persuasions are asking if our election results are reliable," she said in a statement.

There is no evidence that voter results were hacked or that electronic voting machines were compromised.

The Clinton campaign, which declined to initiate recounts on its own, said over the weekend it would participate in the recounts requested by Stein "to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides," in the words of campaign lawyer Marc Elias.

Stein's campaign said she would file a petition Wednesday for a Michigan recount, after which Trump would have seven days to file objections. Trump's margin of victory in the state was a slim 0.22 percent of the total vote.

Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said a recount would be "a waste of time and disrespectful to all Michigan voters."

Chris Thomas, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections, said the recount would begin as early as Friday to meet a Dec. 13 deadline. Under state policy, the recount will be conducted by hand.

He said election officials have heard a lot this year about "so-called fraud ... without any foundation in fact," and a recount settling that question could provide one "silver lining."

In Wisconsin, meanwhile, the state elections commission on Monday approved a timeline to start a recount on Thursday. Stein is pushing for a hand count of the nearly 3 million ballots cast in the state, but the commission left it up to local election officials to determine the best method.

Stein's Wisconsin recount request included an affidavit from University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman stating that a hand recount is the only way to determine whether there could have been a cyberattack that affected the results. He argued that records stored in electronic voting equipment could have been manipulated in an attack.

The AP on Monday updated its election night vote count in Wisconsin to correct the totals for both candidates in three separate counties. The updates dropped Trump's margin over Clinton from 27,257 votes to 22,460 votes, or 0.8 percent of the total vote. The corrections were made during the regular post-election canvass of the election-night vote.

In Pennsylvania, where Trump edged Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 percent of the vote, Stein filed a lawsuit seeking a statewide recount but it wasn't clear if the courts had the authority to order one.

Democratic Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said there was no evidence of voting irregularities or cyberattacks on Pennsylvania's voting machines, 96 percent of which record votes electronically and leave no paper trail.

AP Writers Julie Bykowicz in Washington, David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Mark Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.</s>"This recount is just a way for Jill Stein... to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never ever spend on this ridiculous recount," Trump wrote.

According to CNN, Stein had raised $5 million by Friday.

"This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded," Trump wrote, "and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing."

On Friday, Wisconsin election officials announced plans to move forward with a recount after Stein and Reform Party candidate Rocky De La Fuente submitted petitions.

Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Erik Elias wrote in a Medium post published Saturday that they "intend to participate" in the recount process in Wisconsin "in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." Elias also wrote that the campaign will take the same approach if recount efforts move forward in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well.

Some experts have raised questions over the possibility that some elections systems may have been hacked, based on turnout data. Others have said that there is no evidence as of yet that such a hacking occurred. In the Medium post, the Clinton campaign said it had "not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology," but still plan to participate in the recount process.

Trump quoted Clinton in his statement writing, "as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night... 'We must accept this result and then look to the future.'"

On Sunday, Trump doubled down on his criticism of the recount, characterizing Clinton as a hypocrite in a series of tweets.</s>WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a tweet on Monday he would end the United States' "deal" with Cuba unless a better one was made, reflecting his campaign pledge to reverse President Barack Obama's moves to open relations with the Cold War adversary.</s>The Green Party says it will ask a Pennsylvania court to order a statewide recount of the state's Nov. 8 presidential election result.

But it's unclear if the courts would have authority to do so.

A lawyer for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wouldn't discuss what would be alleged in the expected lawsuit Monday.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump edged Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 , in Pennsylvania.

Democratic Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says there's no evidence of voting irregularities or cyberattacks on Pennsylvania's voting machines, 96 of which record votes electronically and leave no paper trail.

A GOP lawyer says the courts lack authority to order a statewide recount. Cortes says he's also unaware of the courts having authority to do so

A Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas says he's resigning so he won't cast one of the state's 38 electoral votes for Donald Trump.

Art Sisneros previously told The Associated Press that he was wavering on supporting Trump because the Republican "is not biblically qualified for office."

In a lengthy weekend blog post, Sisneros updated that, saying "the best option I see at this time is to resign my position as an elector."

Texas doesn't require its presidential electors to vote in accordance with the state's presidential election results. Trump won Texas by around 9 percentage points and captured 290 overall electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 232.

Texas electors meet in Austin next month to vote for president. By state law, they can vote then on a replacement for Sisneros.

President-elect Donald Trump is claiming, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in the election he won, issuing the baseless claim as part of his angry response to a recount effort led by the Green Party and joined by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Trump tweeted on Sunday that he won the popular vote "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." He later alleged "serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California."

Trump's transition team did not provide any evidence to back up the president-elect's assertions of fraud in the November election. They pointed only to past charges of irregularities in voter registration.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Stein is on track to raise twice as much for an election recount effort than she did for her own failed Green Party presidential bid.

Fueled by the social media hashtag #recount2016 and millions of dispirited Hillary Clinton voters, Stein’s recount drive had already netted $6.3 million by Monday, according to her campaign website. That’s close to the $7 million she posted as a goal and millions more than the roughly $3.5 million she raised during her entire presidential bid.

Citing without evidence concerns about “cyber hacking,” Stein wants a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — places that Clinton, a Democrat, thought were safely in her column. Instead, Republican Donald Trump won all three and with them the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Stein won no states and wouldn’t directly or immediately benefit from a recount — nor would she likely be able to topple Trump. Even Clinton’s attorney Marc Elias wrote there’s “no actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.”

But Stein’s effort could help her in other ways.

By continuing to raise money, she is building up a larger donor list that she can later turn to if she runs again. She also can try to influence policy by urging those donors to call lawmakers or contribute to other politicians. Her campaign says 137,000 people have contributed to the recount.

A bigger supporter list can command bigger fees if Stein chooses to lease it out to other campaigns.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard constitutional law professor, said that although recounts are “entirely within the law,” Stein’s effort is probably aimed more at “trying to gain attention and establish herself as a national player.”

Stein said she is “proud to stand up for election integrity” regardless of whether it changes the outcome of the presidential race. If she raises more money than is needed for the recount itself — including multimillion-dollar attorney fees — her campaign will use the surplus for “election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”

Stein has reminded supporters that they can contribute up to $2,700 for her recount drive — even if they’d already donated the maximum $2,700 to her for the general election. Any money she raises in excess of the actual recount costs could then be donated to charity or to a political party, according to Federal Election Commission rulings.

“The money can’t be used for her personal benefit, but beyond that there’s some flexibility,” said Bob Biersack, who worked at the FEC for three decades and is a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.

The recount itself could be costly.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted Monday to proceed with a recount and will bill Stein and other interested campaigns for the costs, estimated to be at least $3.5 million. Payment is due Tuesday afternoon.

Stein’s campaign filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania on Monday seeking a statewide recount, but it wasn’t clear if the courts had the authority to order one. The campaign also says that on Wednesday it will request a Michigan recount.

Trump denounced the Stein recount effort as “ridiculous” and “a scam.”

It’s a way for Stein “to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” the president-elect said in a statement Saturday.

Yet he has seemed to undercut his own argument that the election is over by going on to question the integrity of the vote.

Trump falsely claimed on Twitter early Sunday that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally” and went on — again with no evidence — to claim “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.”

Tribe noted the irony of Trump blasting Stein’s recount effort while falsely asserting voter fraud has occurred.

“Those two statements are diametrically opposed,” Tribe said.

Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.</s>HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Green Party says it will ask a Pennsylvania court to order a statewide recount of the state's Nov. 8 presidential election result.

But it's unclear if the courts would have authority to do so.

A lawyer for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wouldn't discuss what would be alleged in the expected lawsuit Monday.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump edged Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 , in Pennsylvania.

Democratic Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says there's no evidence of voting irregularities or cyberattacks on Pennsylvania's electronic voting machines.

A GOP lawyer says the courts lack authority to order a statewide recount. Cortes says he's also unaware of the courts having authority to do so.

Voters can still ask for a precinct-level recount in certain counties.
The campaign of Jill Stein files for a recount in Pennsylvania and plans to do so in Michigan.