Stein said regarding Trump's business dealings and refusal to release his tax returns: "At least with Clinton, you know, there was some degree of transparency, but what's going on with Trump, you can't even get at, and what he said was that even to clarify 15 out of these 500 deals, these are just like the most frightening mafiosos around the world. He's like—he's a magnet for crime and extortion." On Mother's Day Stein tweeted "I agree with Hillary, it's time to elect a woman for President. But I want that President to reflect the values of being a mother. #MothersDay." When this was criticized by a pseudonymous activist on Medium and on Twitter, Stein said she "was criticizing her record as a war monger." Polling and result Stein's highest polling average in four candidate polls was in late June 2016, when she polled at 4.8% nationally. Her polling numbers gradually slipped throughout the campaign, consistent with historical trends for minor party candidates; on the eve of Election Day, Stein was at 1.8% in a polling average. Stein ultimately received 1% of the national popular vote in the election. She finished in 4th with over 1,457,216 votes (more than the previous three Green tickets combined) and 1.07% of the popular vote. Stein played a significant role in several crucial battleground states, drawing a vote total in three of them — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that exceeded the margin between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. 2016 presidential election recount fundraising In November 2016, a group of computer scientists and election lawyers including J. Alex Halderman and John Bonifaz (founder of the National Voting Rights Institute) expressed concerns about the integrity of the presidential election results. They wanted a full audit or recount of the presidential election votes in three states key to Donald Trump's electoral college win—Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—but needed a candidate on the presidential ballot to file the petition to state authorities. After unsuccessfully lobbying Hillary Clinton and her team, the group approached Stein and she agreed to spearhead the recount effort. A crowdfunding campaign launched on November 24, 2016 to support the costs of the recount, raised more than $2.5 million in under 24 hours, and $6.7 million in nearly a week. On November 25, 2016, with 90 minutes remaining on the deadline to petition for a recount to Wisconsin's electoral body, Stein filed for a recount