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Tag: Jill Stein

Jill Stein’s Recount Uncovers ‘Economic Extortion’ & Broken Voting Tech

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Despite numerous obstacles ranging from the financial to the political, Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein is pushing forward with a controversial recount campaign.

“This is not what democracy looks like,” Stein told MintPress News on Thursday.

“Democracy should be all about transparency and accountability and voter participation. What we see in the recount is exactly the opposite.”

Beginning late last month, Stein agreed to spearhead recount efforts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, citing irregularities in exit polls in these “swing states” and the persistent — though still unproven — claims that Russians tampered with the election.

A crowdfunding campaign has netted $7.3 million so far, but the campaign is requesting $9.5 million to cover the costs of forcing a recount in each state. Stein called these high fees a form of “economic extortion” that prevents citizens from easily auditing elections.

Recount 2016: Controversy & Media Attacks Follow Jill Stein’s Demand For Electoral Integrity

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Dr. Jill Stein has been attacked in the mainstream media, threatened with legal action, and even created a divide within her own political party due to her attempts to audit the results of the presidential election.

“I think Jill Stein’s doing the right thing,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a self-described “election integrity activist,” in an interview with MintPress News. “I think it’s extremely difficult to argue for any kind of cynical or self-serving motive in this.”

Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University, has spent much of the last decade studying the results of U.S. elections. In the lead up to Election Day, he told MintPress that electronic voting machines in the United States are dangerously vulnerable to hacking and fraud. Now, he says he hopes recounts will encourage more voters to support election reform.

“Beyond their immediate political effects between now and the next election, what the recounts will do is make clear at long last that we must radically reform our abysmal voting system so that this kind of thing never happens again,” Miller said.

Should Third Parties Support ‘Vote Pacts’ To Avoid ‘Spoiling’ Elections?

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Third-party candidates are often accused of acting as “spoilers” by siphoning votes from the two major parties’ nominees and potentially tipping the balance in an election.

Perhaps the most notable example of this is Ralph Nader. The former Green Party candidate is frequently accused of helping George W. Bush win the 2000 presidential election by diverting votes which otherwise would have gone to Democratic nominee Al Gore, although this theory has been disproven many times.

“A lot of people have basically grown to depend on the confines of the two-party system and have a hard time getting their brain around a constructive, strategic path out of it,” Sam Husseini, a political activist, told MintPress News.

Husseini proposed an alternative strategy in which voters form “voting pacts” across party lines. For example, a Democrat and a Republican might each agree to vote for a third-party candidate of their choice, rather than the two major parties’ candidates. The strategy reduces the potential for “spoiling” votes, as long as voting pacts don’t cross state lines, because each of the major candidates loses voters equally.

Greens & Libertarians Rally To Secure 5% Of The Popular Vote Ahead Of Election Day

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Although some indicators suggest the 2016 presidential election could be closer than initially expected, prominent third-party candidates are urging voters not to waver in their support for options outside the traditional two-party system.

Alternatives to the Democrat and Republican nominees, such as the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein and former Gov. Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, received unprecedented attention in this election cycle as dissatisfaction with the two major candidates soared to unprecedented highs.

But third parties traditionally struggle to hold the public’s interest as Election Day approaches, with many voters eventually falling in line with one of the two major parties. While some polls previously suggested a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton, others are now showing a tighter than expected race, which could also scare off some potential third-party voters.

Jill Stein Blasts The Daily Beast’s Ties To Clinton After Attack Against Her Investments

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein accused The Daily Beast, a popular news and opinion website, of hiding its ties to the Clintons after publishing an attack on Stein’s investment portfolio on Wednesday.

“Jill Stein’s Ideology Says One Thing—Her Investment Portfolio Says Another” declared the headline for an analysis of Stein’s investments and finances by Yashar Ali. The article suggests that Stein has millions of dollars invested in mutual funds which support industries she opposes on the campaign trail, including fossil fuels and the military-industrial complex.

“If Mr. Ali is truly interested in conflicts of interest of political candidates and their families, where is his disclosure on the conflict of interest posed by Chelsea Clinton’s position as a director of the corporate owner of the Daily Beast, IAC?”Stein fired back in a detailed response sent to the Daily Beast prior to publication and published to her campaign website in full on Wednesday.

Nearly One Million Americans Watched Jill Stein Crash The Two-Party Presidential Debate

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

Excluded from the third and final presidential debate by the two-party system, Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein took to Facebook Live and Twitter on Wednesday night to offer an alternative point of view.

Over 932,000 people viewed her broadcast and it had been shared more than 19,700 times by Thursday afternoon.

“Thank you so much for tuning in to the real debate,” Stein told her Facebook audience during the opening moments of her video.