Hillary Clinton's campaign says it will take part in recount effort despite no 'actionable evidence' of foul play
Hillary Clinton's campaign said Saturday that it will take part in a vote recount in Wisconsin initiated by Jill Stein.
Stein, the Green Party's presidential nominee, has so far raised millions of dollars to fund the recount effort.
In a post on the Medium, Marc Elias, the Clinton campaign's counsel, said that the while the campaign has been actively investigating the election results with a slew of lawyers and data scientists, it hasn't found any "actionable evidence" of hacking or "attempts to alter the voting technology."
"We had not planned to exercise this option ourselves, but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides," Elias wrote.
Elias said the Clinton campaign will continue to cooperate if Stein pursues recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan with the funds she has raised.
He also noted that the combined margin of victory for President-elect Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while only 107,000 votes, "exceeds the largest margin ever overcome," in a recount. The three states account for a total of 46 electoral votes.
"But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself," Elias wrote.
Elias also said that the Clinton campaign will continue to "perform our due diligence" and "actively follow all further activities that are to occur prior to the certification of any election results." He noted that Michigan, a key state in the election, doesn't conduct a post-election audit in the same manner as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Regardless, the Obama administration released a statement Friday indicating that the White House stands behind the election results.
"We stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people," the statement read.
Stein initially raised money for the recount effort over concerns raised by several top computer scientists who told the Clinton campaign they had found possible evidence of voter manipulation based on voting patterns in the states. Experts have largely debunked speculation that electronic voting machines could be hacked, primarily because the machines are not connected to the internet.
The Trump campaign hasn't offered comment about the recount. However, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser and former campaign manager, tweeted on Thursday: "Look who 'can't accept the election results,'" linking to a story about Clinton supporters urging such a recount effort.
The deadlines to file recounts in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are Monday and Wednesday, respectively.