The recount took more than a month. Kloppenburg had the votes of nuns thrown out. It was ugly, and a complete waste of time and money.
Even after the recount was completed, Kloppenburg was slow to accept it.
The Wisconsin recount of the 2016 presidential race could be messier, given that twice as many votes will need to be recounted. Making matters worse, Stein is demanding that the recount be done by hand.
From Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit:
Federal law says that presidential recounts must be completed within 35 days after an election. Stein waited until 90 minutes before the Wisconsin deadline for filing a recount petition expired.What happens if the recount isn't completed by the deadline?
All the votes have to be certified by December 13 according to a report on Friday. The electors meet on December 19.
Wisconsin will almost certainly miss that deadline, since the last recount took more than a month. And that recount was for a state Supreme Court contest where only 1.5 million votes were cast.
If Wisconsin misses the December 19 deadline, the electoral votes may not be counted.
Does that mean Wisconsinites will be effectively disenfranchised in the 2016 presidential election?
Hoft points out that if "Wisconsin’s electoral votes are excluded on December 19, the state will then have to try and get Congress to include the votes in the January 6 count."
I can't believe that Congress would fail to "count every vote" and simply just toss out the Wisconsin election results.
All of this is crap. I'm certain Jill Stein intentionally waited until the final hour to file for a recount in Wisconsin to make it as difficult as possible to meet the deadline. There's no other realistic explanation.
Such sleazy tactics don't win over hearts and minds.
If the Leftists are hoping to annul the electoral votes of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, they are truly deranged.
It angers me that Leftists are attempting to overturn the results of the election.
Millions of Americans will not be disenfranchised just because Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton waited to challenge the results of the election. That plot won't work.
I won't stand for my vote to be disregarded.
I don't believe it will happen, but the fact that the anti-Trump contingent wants it to happen makes me sick.
I'm reminded of a fascinating article about the paradox of illiberal democracy and liberal authoritarianism, the theory being that popular tides seem to want to abandon democratic ideals, and those in power can only preserve democratic order but challenging the will of the people. There is no right way out of that, and trying to challenge the results almost a month out after poo-pooing Trump's crazy talk of everything being rigged is definitely not the way to handle this.
ReplyDeleteBut for all of Trump's autocratic tendencies and his conspiracy theories about everything being rigged--and authoritariansim being a common thread of his primary supporters--the progressive left needs to look itself in the mirror about why people think disregarding the results of an election is okay. They were the ones that supported an activist judiciary, popular opinion be damned. They defended Obama's "I've got a pen and a phone" executive orders, popular vote in Congress be damned. And now they want to abolish the electoral college and engage in recount gamesmanship that could risk disenfranchisement? Spare me the high-minded talk of "our values."
Finishing my thought: the most depressing part of this debacle is that there is no good messenger for having faith in democracy. Trump can't, with his faithful (i.e., not discerning conservatives who felt stuck with a binary choice) peddled civic illiteracy. Not Hillary, whose primary accomplishment is flouting the law and getting away with it over decades. And not progressives, who want to subvert everyone that doesn't subscribe to their far-left smugness.
ReplyDeleteTo say many of us find ourselves without a satisfactory messenger is an understatement, especially in the 2016 presidential election.
ReplyDeleteEngaging in an effort to disenfranchise entire states is a really dark thing to do. I'm sure it will fail but that makes it no less troubling.
There is reason for hope. Obama has "a pen and a phone," but the Founders gave us something more powerful: the Constitution. As long as it isn't gutted, I have faith in our system of government. Creating a more perfect union takes work and it never stops.