$2.5m raised in a matter of hours to recount key states in US election

It took mere hours.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein recently launched a campaign to recount several key swing states in the American presidential election. Stein set an initial target of $2.5m, hoping to reach the figure by Friday afternoon but reached it within hours. The money will be used to review voting results in Wisconsin, but even more money will need to be raised to review voting in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The campaign came on the back of a New York Mag article which claimed Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump. The group believe that they've found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The three states (WI, MI, and PA) all voted narrowly in favour of Trump in the election, the margin being as little as 0.3% in Michigan, and a change in those States would result in Clinton gaining enough Electoral College votes to be elected. "The costs associated with recounts are a function of state law," Stein’s campaign wrote. "Attorney’s fees are likely to be another $2-3 million, then there are the costs of the statewide recount observers in all three states. The total cost is likely to be $6-7 million." Ms Stein's team said they were raising money "to demand recounts in these three states where the data suggests a significant need to verify machine-counted vote totals". “These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” Stein said. “We deserve elections we can trust.”