The behavior of Jill Stein, who has filed in Wisconsin for a recount of votes cast in the presidential election, and who plans to pursue recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania as well, has been frustrating; that of Hillary Clinton, who joined the effort, human but disappointing; and that of Donald Trump, outrageous and destructive. The recount business has not brought out the best in anybody, and in Trump it has brought out the worst: in a series of tweets, he alleged that millions of votes were fraudulent, enough to cost him the popular vote.But none of this is going to produce any change in the results of the election.
This is not Al Gore losing Florida by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2000. Trump won Michigan by about 20,000 votes, Pennsylvania by 70,000, and Wisconsin by 30,000. And it is worth noting that Stein won enough votes in Michigan and Wisconsin to account for Clinton’s losses there. Her Wisconsin application lists a number of reasons for a recount, most of which are paraphrases of a single thought: the Russians might, just might, have fixed the election—after all, they hacked John Podesta’s e-mail. Added to that is the general observation that electronic voting systems are, in any state, theoretically hackable. That amounts to saying that no one should really trust any results. Attached to her submission is an affidavit from a computer expert, J. Alex Halderman, who has long warned against electronic voting systems. But, apart from explaining why a paper record is a good idea, he doesn’t really offer any evidence, apart from press reports that the Russians have hacked other things and a general sense that they are up to no good. And Halderman includes this line: “One would expect a skilled attacker’s work to leave no visible signs, other than a surprising electoral outcome in which results in several close states differed from pre-election polling.” This is classic conspiracy logic: the absence of evidence is evidence of just how insidious it is!
“It’s a healing and positive thing to examine the vote,” she said in a phone interview.
Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by 10,704 under the current count. Virtually no one — certainly not the Clinton lawyers — thinks she’s going to make that up in a recount. However, it’s definitely possible Clinton could have gotten 10,705 votes more if Stein had stayed off the ballot in the first place. “Jill Stein is the friend who ruins your wedding but really shows up for you during the divorce,” twittered comedian Morgan Murphy."
OldSchoolTheSKOSlives 