Green Party goes to Pa. Capitol to demand more election oversight

Green Party supporters were in Harrisburg Monday to back Jill Stein’s quest for a presidential vote recount in the commonwealth.

Stein, the Green Party candidate, has now filed suit in federal and Philadelphia city courts.

One of the complaints the Greens have brought up time and again is the difficulty of auditing the vote in Pennsylvania. Many of the machines the commonwealth uses are paperless and don’t create physical records of the votes cast.

Candice Hoke, a director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection at Cleveland State University, said the machines have too many vulnerabilities.

“If we’re going to use computers, we should use the same procedures that businesses routinely use,” she said. “We require not only internal quality control measures, but external independent quality controls.”

Stein and the rest of her party have said they don’t have specific evidence of fraud, but contend that the only real way to know if it occurred is to audit the vote.

Pat LaMarche, the Green Party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee, said it shouldn’t be such a difficult process.

“To act like it’s not possible, to act like we don’t need to worry our pretty little heads about it, is absolutely childish,” she said.

LaMarche and many of her allies concede that a recount probably won’t change results.

But, she said, that’s not the point.

“People care about the truth,” she said. “People care about justice. There comes a point when it’s not about the outcome anymore.”

Election officials from both major parties maintain the vote is accurate.