A federal judge on Monday issued a stinging rejection of a Green Party-backed request to recount paper ballots in Pennsylvania's presidential election, won narrowly by Republican Donald Trump, and scan some counties' election systems for signs of hacking. In his 31-page decision, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond said there were at least six grounds that required him to reject the Green Party's lawsuit, which had been opposed by Trump, the Pennsylvania Republican Party and the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

(Reuters) - The recount effort by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in three crucial U.S. states came to an end on Monday, after weeks of legal wrangling yielded only one electoral review in Wisconsin. It is part of a broader effort by Stein to recount votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three states with a history of supporting Democrats that were narrowly won by Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump won Pennsylvania by more than 44,000 votes and Michigan by more than 10,000 votes, according to the latest figures. Stein, who finished fourth in the election, challenged the results in those two states as well as Michigan, where the state’s top court on Friday denied Stein’s last-ditch appeal to keep a recount going. Meanwhile, Wisconsin election officials said on Monday they had completed their 10-day recount with only small changes to the vote total. In response to Diamond’s ruling, Stein said in a statement that Pennsylvanians’ right to have their votes counted had been “stripped from right under them.”

As of Monday morning, the Wisconsin recount was 95 percent complete and had narrowed Trump’s lead over Clinton by only 25 votes.
Jill Stein's bid to force a recount of the presidential election results in the state of Pennsylvania is rejected by a federal judge.