Tresa Baldas, Jim Schaefer, and Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press

On the eve of her visit to Detroit, Green Party candidate Jill Stein got some bad news from the Michigan Supreme Court: Your recount effort is denied.

In an order issued Friday evening, the state's highest court in a 3-2 split rejected Stein's appeal that sought to continue a recount of the presidential election, concluding she had no standing to seek a recount because she wasn't an aggrieved candidate.

That's what the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded in a 3-0 ruling on Tuesday when it said that the recount should never have started in the first place because Stein never stood a chance to win with her fourth-place finish and 1.07% of the vote. A federal judge upheld that finding a day later.

The Michigan Supreme Court did the same tonight, stating it supports "the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that petitioner failed to adequately allege that she 'is aggrieved on account of fraud or mistake in the canvass of the votes.'"

Writing for the majority, Republican justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano said Stein "failed to allege that she has been harmed or that her legal rights have been infringed in any way whatsoever." A third Republican, Justice Stephen Markman, joined in their opinion.

Democratic justices Richard Bernstein and Bridget McCormack dissented. McCormack said Stein should have been given a hearing. Bernstein wrote that he would flat-out reverse the earlier decision because the "Court of Appeals clearly erred." Both dissenting justices essentially argue that Stein met the legal standard of being "aggrieved."

The two remaining justices — Robert Young and Joan Larsen — recused themselves after Stein made the request because the two judges were named on a list from Republican President-elect Donald Trump as possible U.S. Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Meanwhile, Stein's staff said she still plans to hold a rally at 2 p.m. Saturday outside Cobo Center, where the controversial recount got under way Wednesday, revealing all kinds of problems in Detroit's election. More than half of Detroit's precincts could not be recounted because of a number of problems with ballot tallies and how the ballot containers were secured.

That, Stein's campaign has argued, is one of the reasons that the recount should be allowed to continue — to reveal the flaws in Michigan's election process.

In a statement late Friday, Stein blasted the Supreme Court's decision.

“Although we are deeply disappointed in today’s decision by the Michigan Supreme Court ... we are not surprised given the political motives of the majority. The fact is that in Michigan, political cronyism, bureaucratic obstruction, and legal maneuvering have run roughshod over the democratic process," the statement read.

"We need to examine how the use of poorly maintained, antiquated voting machines in underserved communities results in a de facto ‘Jim Crow’ situation in which potentially thousands of poor voters and voters of color may be disenfranchised. The protracted resistance to a recount only reinforces the perception that Donald Trump’s cronies and the entrenched powers in the state either benefit from this broken system or have something to hide."

Trump, speaking Friday night on his "thank you" tour in the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker, said Stein had ulterior motives.

"I heard a half an hour ago, we totally won it," he told a crowd of several thousand people. "Not that we care about that. That was just a way for somebody to try and raise some money for themselves."

Stein's recount request questioned Michigan’s aging voting system and the 75,000 ballots in Michigan in which voters picked nobody for president. That's almost twice as many blank presidential ballots than were cast in 2012. In Michigan, President-elect Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes.

The Michigan Republican Party, Trump and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette fought Stein's efforts on a number of fronts, arguing she had no standing to seek a recount that would cost Michigan taxpayers an estimated $5 million, that there was no proof but rather made-up fears of fraud or hacking, and that she was abusing the state's recount law. The law's goal is to change the outcome of an election for a legitimately aggrieved candidate, not to audit the state's election process, they said.

Stein's lawyers argued that the recount must continue, stressing that it has shown numerous voting problems across the state, particularly in Detroit. They also argued that Stein is an aggrieved party if she participated in an election that was plagued with mistakes or fraud — even if she didn't stand to win.

The recount controversy started last week, when the Michigan Board of Canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on Trump's objection to Stein's request for a recount, which allowed the hand recount to move forward. Then came an order from U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith, who issued a restraining order against the state to block it from trying to stop the recount. He ordered the recount to begin Monday so that it would end by Dec.13 to meet the deadline for certifying the Electoral College, which votes Dec. 19. In the three days of counting, 26 counties had begun the process to recount the presidential ballots.

By Wednesday evening, Goldsmith dissolved the restraining order after the state appeals court ruled the recount never should have started. The Michigan Supreme Court agreed.

Contact Tresa Baldas @tbaldas@freepress.com.