Recount Freakout [with comment by Paul]

If you’re a liberal, anything is better than admitting that you lost. So now, just weeks after cautioning Donald Trump’s supporters that they had better accept the results of the election (unlike the Democrats in 2000 and 2004), Democrats led by Jill Stein are demanding recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Left-wingers have donated millions of dollars, and the Hillary Clinton campaign has announced that it will participate in Stein’s recount efforts.

The presidential election wasn’t particularly close: Trump won, 306-232. Still, if you convert Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to Hillary Clinton victories, she would edge Trump out, 278 to 260. That is obviously the basis on which those states were chosen. However, there is zero chance that a recount will change the result in any of those states, let alone all of them. Trump won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes, Michigan by 10,704 votes, and Pennsylvania by more than 70,000 votes. Lots of luck with those recounts.

Jill Stein claims that she isn’t trying to favor one presidential candidate over the other, but only wants to assure a fair process. That is nonsense. The states she and other liberal activists have chosen to challenge are not those where the race was closest. How about New Hampshire, which Hillary Clinton won by around 2,700 votes? Or Nevada, which she won by a little over 26,000? Even Minnesota was a whole lot closer than Pennsylvania; with its notoriously lax ballot security, Minnesota could be fertile territory for questioning election results.

Liberals know they aren’t going to overturn the result of the election through recounts, they just want to undermine Trump’s victory by making vague allegations of irregularities, “hacking,” and so on, which will circulate in the fever swamp for the next four years. It is, in other words, just another attempt by liberals to undermine our democracy.

PAUL ADDS: I find it amusing that Jill Stein is leading the charge in favor of a recount. The election results posted here show that Stein collected more votes in Michigan and Wisconsin than Hillary Clinton lost those states by.

In Michigan, Stein picked up 50,000 votes; Hillary trailed Trump by about 11,000. In Wisconsin, Stein captured around 31,000 votes; Hillary lost the state by around 20,000.

Not all of the Stein voters would have opted for Clinton absent Stein’s campaign. A fair number would have voted for neither major party candidate. A few might even have voted for Trump.

Nonetheless, it’s possible that Stein cost Clinton one or both of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Throughout her campaign, Stein claimed indifference as to whether Trump or Clinton prevailed. Now, she’s trying to reverse the outcome of the election in favor of Clinton. Maybe she feels guilty.

Stein’s odd behavior reflects a certain amount of confusion within the ranks of the hard left, it seems to me.

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