PHILADELPHIA _ Green Party-backed lawyers moved their fight for a recount of Pennsylvania's Nov. 8 presidential election results to a new venue Monday, hoping a federal judge would be receptive to their claims of potential irregularities with electronic voting machines across the state.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Philadelphia, the lawyers asked the judge for a forensic examination of a sample of voting machines to ensure that hackers did not manipulate election results.
They claimed that the barriers to a recount under state law _ including a required $1 million bond to pursue a challenge _ violate the rights of voters.
"There's only one way to know for sure whether there was malware on these machines and that is to examine them," said Illann M. Maazel, a lawyer spearheading the recount suit in a news conference Monday. "That's what we are asking for. Let's look behind the curtain."
The filing of the federal complaint came days after lawyers withdrew a similar suit from the state's Commonwealth Court, saying the 100 voters they represented as plaintiffs could not come up with the $1 million required.
"That is an enormous bond to impose on regular working people," Maazel said.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is pursuing recounts and forensic examinations of election system software in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Donald Trump eked out narrow victories on Election Day that proved crucial to clinching his victory over Hillary Clinton.
Together, the three states _ all of which voted Democrat in the last two presidential elections -carry enough electoral votes to flip the election. But so far, Pennsylvania's top election official, Pedro Cortes, has said there was "no evidence whatsoever" of voting irregularities.
Trump beat Clinton by about 49,500 votes, a gap that narrowed this week by about 20,000 votes after results were updated.
In tweets over the weekend, Trump again referred to Stein's effort as a scam.
In addition to their efforts to mount a statewide recount in Pennsylvania, Stein's legal team has urged voters in Pennsylvania precincts to submit petitions to their local election boards asking for localized recounts.
Locally, petitions were filed in Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware Counties _ efforts that have been met with mixed success.
Last week, Philadelphia's commissioners agreed to recount ballots in 75 of the city's more than 1,600 divisions, but rejected a forensic audit of how the voting machines worked. Maazel said Monday that Green Party's legal team is pursuing an appeal of that decision.
Judges in Bucks and Delaware Counties are expected to hold hearings on the matter this week.
A judge rejected a request for recounts in 72 of Montgomery County's precincts last week. A partial recount in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, will take place Monday.
