Jill Stein’s vanity project in Wisconsin
Jill Stein may actually believe that demanding a recount of presidential tallies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania will ensure that “democracy” is served.
More likely, she believes the Green Party will be served by her audacious PR stunt.
Either way, the Stein recounts are a colossal waste of money and energy when there is not a shred of credible evidence of fraud or error and when the final vote in these three states likely will not change very much.
Stein’s quixotic moralizing damages the credibility of the very institution she claims to protect — the sanctity of the ballot box. It could even put Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes at risk if the recount isn’t completed by the time the Electoral College meets in December to officially confirm Trump’s election. Stein wants a hand count of ballots, and sued on Monday to try to force a reluctant state government to do that.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign should have stayed far away from this nonsense. Instead, her campaign is participating in the recount.
Clinton blasted Trump for refusing to say during an October debate whether he would accept the results of the election. Her campaign wrote on Twitter at the time: “Donald Trump refused to say that he’d respect the results of this election. By doing that, he’s threatening our democracy.”
Does she still believe that? She should reaffirm that view.
The president-elect, as he so often does, confused matters in an angry tweet-burst of Trumpian logic. He recklessly claimed with zero evidence that in addition to his win in the Electoral College he also had won the popular vote “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Fact check: Unofficial tallies show Clinton leading Trump in the popular vote by about 2 million votes nationwide, and there is absolutely no evidence of massive voter fraud. Get real. Here are the stubborn facts:
Trump beat Clinton in the three states by more than 103,000 votes, a narrow margin, to be sure, but one that will be all but impossible to erase in a recount. Trump had an edge of 22,177 votes in Wisconsin; 10,704 in Michigan and 70,795 in Pennsylvania, according to the latest unofficial tallies. Clinton would need to overturn the results in all three states to flip Trump’s Electoral College victory. No candidate has ever picked up so many votes in a recount. It’s foolish to even contemplate it.
Stein, who almost certainly pulled more votes from Clinton than from Trump, received 49,286 votes in Pennsylvania, 51,643 in Michigan and 31,006 in Wisconsin, according to unofficial tallies. In other words, the person who got 1% or less of the vote in these states is the one demanding a recount. Why should she be allowed to do that?
In the era of extreme everything, it might seem savvy to push for every conceivable edge. But Stein’s actions fly in the face of the long tradition of accepting election results and moving on. This probably isn’t about democracy at all but about marketing Jill Stein and the Green Party as an alternative in the next election. The Greens, after all, have pulled this sort of stunt in the past.
There was mischief aplenty during the election, which raised concerns about the integrity of the balloting. The Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. They attempted to get into voter registration databases. They spread fake news, apparently to help Trump.
But there is no evidence — none whatsoever — that the actual election results were affected despite what the furies on social media would have you believe. These debunked and paranoid theories don’t hold up to scrutiny.
In a blog post Saturday at the website Medium, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Erik Elias indicated that the Clinton campaign realizes the pointlessness of Stein’s effort. The Clinton campaign joined the effort, he wrote, to “to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.”
Because the campaign had not “uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves,” Elias wrote.
We assume Clinton still believes what she said in her gracious concession speech the day after the election: “Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”
She should reiterate that sentiment now in a clear, public statement. And, she should reject Stein’s games.
Stein has raised more than $6 million to pay for the recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. A lot of that money probably is coming from disappointed Clinton supporters still infected by the magical thinking that somehow the election of Trump can be overturned.
The supporters of both candidates would be far better off giving their money to a worthy charity. And Stein’s supporters should reflect on what might have been if more of them had not wasted their votes in three Upper Midwestern states on a candidate who had no chance of winning.
Confusing work with ‘slavery’
When I first moved to Milwaukee County from out of state, the minimum security detention center was actually a working dairy farm.
Prisoners ran the farm. They probably weren’t planning to be farmers when they were released, but they did learn responsibility by caring for the animals and raising food.
Then someone like state Sen. Lena Taylor said, “Oh my, that’s slavery,” and the farm was shut down. The animals were sold and the machinery and buildings sat idle to rust and decay.
Now the inmates were also idle and began to complain that they were bored, so the taxpayers bought them TV’s. Next they complained that they weren’t getting exercise; the taxpayers bought tread mills and other exercise equipment.
Now Taylor plans to stop what she calls “legalized slavery” (“Taylor’s slavery claim rings true,” Nov. 27).
She seems to think that inmates doing laundry and other menial chores is slavery. I guess my children were slaves because as soon as they were old enough, they helped with dishes and made their beds. They, in turn, were provided with food, clothing, a bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads.
As the saying goes, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”
If Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke gets a job with the Trump administration, maybe Milwaukee County could hire Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio. I hear he is out of a job. He could start saving Milwaukee County money.
Fight all bullying
Incoming First Lady Melania Trump plans to fight cyberbullying. This is very important, and I applaud her choice.
I hope that she will join me and many others in fighting non-virtual bullying as well. I am agonizing over the proliferation of hate and bullying incidents around the presidential election this year.
Anonymity and a lack of accountability bullies are factors that allow bullying to thrive unchallenged, whether in cyberspace, public space or private space. The hatred of “otherness,” which denies the humanity of another person, demeans the hater along with the hated.
If we do not protect the most vulnerable among us, we are not protecting any of us and will all end up paying a steep price. Despite our differences, we must unite around the idea that hate has no place in our country.
Back-door politics by Clinton
Does anybody out there really believe that Jill Stein wants this recount (“Recount expected to start Thursday,” Nov. 28)?
Amazing how she selected the three states that Hillary Clinton would need to overturn in order to win.
The back-door politics just never stop. Clinton couldn’t ask for a recount because she conceded. Of course, now she blames President Brack Obama for that because he told her to concede.
This country is headed for some tough times. Not to mention the world probably thinks the United States is not only disorganized but very vulnerable. Not good
Math doesn’t add up
I am curious how our incoming administration complains about the current national debt out of one side of its mouth while proposing a fiscal approach that would make the national debt worse.
There is no way that one can run a government where taxes are cut and spending is increased without ballooning the national debt.
It would seem that the president must have failed Business 101 at his university.