As a group of computer scientists urged the Clinton campaign to seek a voter recount in three states last week, it would be Green Party candidate Jill Stein who would answer their call.

Essentially turning her 2016 website into a Kickstarter campaign, Stein began accepting public donations to fund the recount.  Currently, $6.25M of a $7M goal has been raised. Unfortunately, your money may be better spent on a fundraiser for another Ghoulies sequel.

Hillary Clinton now holds a 2 million-plus lead over Trump in the popular vote, which means the majority of the voting electorate is not excited about the incoming presidency. For the millions of Americans who are fearful of the potentially damaging policies under a Trump administration, the recount isn’t just appealing… it’s hopeful.

Trump won the election based on the electoral college map. Interestingly, the states the scientists believe the vote totals could have been manipulated are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All three of which were part of Clinton’s electoral firewall, which came tumbling down like a bad game of Jenga on election night.

Trump currently holds 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232. Gaining MI, PA and WI would give Clinton 278 electoral votes, winning the electoral college and the presidency. Unfortunately, the odds of this happening are the same as Paramount releasing a big budget version of Romeo and Juliet starring Hailee Steinfeld and the Pumpkinhead monster.

Fake news sites (I’m looking at you Occupy Democrats) have published articles referencing a possible hacking, even though there is no evidence such an act occurred.

J. Alex Halderman is the Director of the University of Michigan Center for Security and Society. He’s also a member of the group of computer scientists who have called for the recounts.

Posting on Medium, Prof. Halderman writes:

“Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather then that the election was hacked.”

I highly recommend reading the non-partisan ProPublica’s excellent series of tweets, detailing their election day monitoring which resulted in no evidence of a rigged election.

On Friday, Green Party officials filed for the recount in Wisconsin.

Stein claimed she was doing this “for an election system we can trust,” even though there is no specific reason not to trust it.

If she were to raise excess funds (which she likely has), Stein’s page states “the surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”

Former Wisconsin Green Party co-chairman and current Ambassador of Peace for Stein’s shadow cabinet, George Martin, must not have gotten the memo. During a press conference on Friday, Martin said:

“As a national party our commitment is not only to run at the national level, but more importantly, to build at the local level and build political careers, and so that’s where these dollars and these excess dollars will go in the future for next year.”

Guys, we could have had a Ghoulies sequel.

What’s incredibly frustrating is that Jill Stein and her supporters contributed to Clinton’s loss in Michigan and Wisconsin, two of the three states in the recount.

Hillary Clinton lost Wisconsin to Trump by 22,177 votes. Jill Stein won 31,006 votes.

Clinton lost Michigan to Trump by just 10,704 votes. Stein received 51,463 votes.

Combined, the two states equal a total of 26 electoral votes. You would still need Pennsylvania’s electoral numbers to tip the scales in Clinton’s favor… and you get them when you look at Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson’s numbers.

Trump won the Keystone State by 70,638 votes. While Stein pulled in 49,170 votes, Johnson won 144,141.

Honestly, I wouldn’t trust Stein or Johnson to run a fucking Star Wars fan club, let alone become POTUS. If Johnson doesn’t even know who Harriet Tubman was, there’s no way he knows who Greedo is.

Stein should not be celebrated for championing this recount; she’s an opportunist. By using the recount, Stein will generate funds for the Green Party while maintaining her position as the public persona of it.

As news broke this weekend of the Clinton campaign participating in the Wisconsin recount (they literally have nothing to lose by doing so), our President-elect went on an embarrassing Twitter bender.

As I write this, Trump has published thirteen back-to-back tweets attacking the recount. That is nine more tweets than what he used to attack the cast of “Hamilton,” and thirteen more than tweets assuring Muslims and minorities there will be a place for them under his administration.

In the most disturbing tweet, Trump claims he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

If Trump can reject the results of a popular vote as President-elect, you have to wonder what 2020 is going to be like if he loses as a sitting president.

Trump’s blatant lie likely stems from a report alleging 3 million illegal immigrants voted, originating from Alex Jones’ conspiracy site Infowars. It’s a baseless claim (seemingly a requirement to be published on Infowars) and has been found to be “false” by Politifact.

If you voted third party or abstained (only 58.5% of the electorate voted) and stand against the Dakota Access pipeline, you enabled a president-elect who not only has stock in the pipeline’s parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, but may also revive the Keystone pipeline.

If you are for a woman’s right to choose, our president-elect has stood by nominating pro-life justices to the Supreme Court.

If you support Black Lives Matter, you enabled a president-elect who has chosen a white nationalist as his chief strategist.

If you don’t learn from voting third party in 2016, you’ll re-elect Trump in 2020.