This Recount Thing is a Hot Mess…and we’ll likely all suffer for it
With this morning’s news that Hillary Clinton’s campaign will be participating in the recount effort, it seems more pertinent than ever to address the problems with that effort. There seems to be a dearth of nuanced conversation on the left about this and a commensurate amount of glee and smugness on the right. Perhaps it’s time to take a moment out to understand why. As I see it, there are five main reasons why this recount effort is more destructive than not.
- The vote was most likely not hacked.
In fact, no one genuinely thinks it was. Think about that for a moment. The people who sounded alarm bells — whether that be the computer scientists or Jill Stein herself — don’t even believe that the vote was hacked or that a recount will change the results. Moreover, rudimentary statistical analysis shows that the discrepancies originally raised in Wisconsin, for example, were likely due to educational and racial differences in the counties that used electronic voting machines versus those that did not.
Given this strong evidence that runs contrary to the current result, continuing to push for a recount has detrimental effects to our understanding of basic math, electoral systems, and democratic values themselves.
Think of this:
Michigan is worth 16 electoral votes (winner takes all)
Wisconsin is worth 10 electoral votes (winner takes all)
Pennsylvania is worth 20 electoral votes (winner takes all)
Total currently in dispute: 46
Currently Trump has 306 electoral votes. Clinton has 232.
If he lost all three in a certified recount, he’d have 260 and Clinton would have 278. That is the only scenario in which this changes the underlying result. Anything less than a three state reversal would result in the same exact thing: a Trump presidency.
2. Our institutions need our support more than ever.
So here we sit on the eve of a Trump presidency and a GOP takeover of the federal government (soon to be all three branches when Trump gets his SCOTUS appointment) and we need every institution working at full strength to combat an authoritarian-style takeover. And if you think it can’t happen here, perhaps you’re putting too much stock in American exceptionalism and not enough in the similarities between America in 2016 and Germany in 1932.
3. A recount diminishes legitimate claims of foreign-influence in our election.
We have a lot of evidence that Russia and other foreign entities interfered with our election. At the very least, we have an organization (Wikileaks) that attempted (and likely succeeded) to sway the media narrative surrounding the candidate they disfavored. But our discussion of that (on the left at least) has almost ceased in light of this recount. That’s an important discussion that needs to happen with bipartisan support (like it or not, we don’t control either chamber of Congress to start the discussion). Meanwhile, we’re fighting to recount votes that (a) don’t need to be recounted; and, (b) even if they showed a different result might not change the overall situation.
Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf? Crying foul every time we talk about “hacking,” or “foreign influence,” creates a bed of nails effect where all claims are taken as seriously and as insignificantly as one another. Trust me, this is how Trump made it through several disqualifying gaffes to become president-elect. He just kept making more.
4. This emboldens a charlatan.
I have no respect for Jill Stein. This does not change that. If anything, it reinforces my previous beliefs about her and strengthens them.
Some will claim Jill Stein is doing this for the greater good, for electoral integrity, or for the sake of our democracy. She is not. She can say that all she wants. People on the left can say it all they want. Jesus Christ himself could descend from a cloud and tell me that. I will tell each and every one of those people that I strongly disagree.
Here’s why: She’s doing this to raise her own profile while simultaneously calling into question the strength of the progressive cause within and outside of the Democratic party. Stein’s clamoring about the “rigged system,” sounds like an awfully familiar strain of thought the left decried when it came from a certain orange-faced nemesis. It’s an uneducated and vague statement no matter who mentions it.
Yes, of course the system is rigged. But that rigging was done by design. The electoral college is a distortion of democracy. Single member districts drown out dissent. The disembowelment of the Voting Rights Act was an atrocity for the work we’ve done to eliminate barriers to voting, especially racial barriers. Voter ID laws disproportionately affect the poor, people of color, and people in rural areas, acting as a poll tax and a disincentive to jump the hurdles we place in front of voting. Election Day itself, falling on a Tuesday in November, sets us up for lacking participation.
All of this was done in the open and it wasn’t done at election time.
What was done at election time is actually far more sane than people want to realize. Given the ridiculous barriers to voting we erect with one self-righteous cause or another, we still manage to have fair elections. The same way in-person voter fraud is extremely rare, in person voter hacking is rare. When we raise the negligible to the common, we are refocusing efforts away from removing all of the systematic problems to ones that do not exist is a problem. Consider, for a moment, that we get to the end and find no evidence of vote improprieties. When we find that out, have we just wasted a brilliant opportunity to fix the other problems? Have we squandered our energy fighting the wrong battle so that we lose the war?
Sure, I can be wrong. There could have been hacking at the electronic polling places in Wisconsin. (Odds are there wasn’t.) The reality is this: if there was hacking and it did change the result, the odds of us actually finding it through a recount are slim to none. That means we’re engaging in this exercise to help secure “the results” is actually a fool’s errand. And we have a fool in Stein leading us.
This brings me back to Stein. She knows we won’t find anything. She’s said as much. She’s doing this to “secure democracy,” but by challenging our processes and procedures she’s actually challenging democracy. Yes, a solid democracy would survive a challenge. But guess what? We already have a challenge to that in Donald Trump. Do we need another one so soon before the real battle begins?
Meanwhile, Stein’s profile is raised. She earns credibility without actually having done anything to get it. She gets more name recognition, especially in liberal circles. And when the Democrats get their acts together (and I believe they will) in 2018 and 2020, Stein will still be acting like a thorn in their sides. She will be delegitimizing the system and any hope for change. She wants to bring about the systematic destruction of the Democratic Party and hasn’t shied away from that in 2016. What would stop her with increased visibility? Stein is known to pander to groups to earn their affections without any second thought. If you think this is different, you are sadly mistaken.
…and that doesn’t even touch the issue of the millions of dollars she’s raised for this effort.
5. This divides the left.
Maybe you don’t care about progressive politics. That’s fine. The first four are still true. But if you do care, then this is especially for you. If you care about things like healthcare, minimum wages, worker protections, gender equity, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, etc…this goes right to you.
This effort is dividing us. And it’s doing so on purpose.
This is a way to distract us. It doesn’t matter who is doing it really. But consider for a moment that the right is loving this. They are loving seeing us argue about this and pointing out the idiocy of people on the left claiming the system is rigged after saying that Trump shouldn’t make the same claims. And you know what? They’re correct. Sure, we could debate the shades of gray (it’s one thing to say it’s rigged before it happens vs. after, etc.) but that doesn’t really play well to the masses. Nor does it sit well with me.
There’s a reason Clinton’s campaign didn’t lead this recount effort. There are several, actually…see above. They know all of this and they have seen the same evidence and chose not to act. This was deliberate. But for a moment, let’s talk about the one we haven’t covered yet. If this did change the result. If all three states flipped, where would we really be?
I have no faith that this country would not descend into civil war. People on the left are genuinely hurt beyond measure right now. Rightfully so, our emotions are raw and our spirits are shaken. We are trying to figure out how to regroup.
…now imagine adding to it angry Trump supporters who get jilted by a “technicality.”
…now imagine adding to it an all-GOP Congress who vowed before not to work with Clinton and will be emboldened by the angry masses now never to engage.
…now imagine adding to it a world that is already questioning our stability and leadership in trying times.
…now imagine adding to it an interfering-Russia to the mix.
I don’t see any of this going well. At the best it destroys the Democratic party. At the worst it destroys America and the world.
And raising the spectre of it makes all of those things start stirring into motion without even having the result change.
What I’m not saying…
Whenever I say these things I inevitably get called out for being anti-democratic or not a true progressive. I get asked, “what’s the harm,” and told that we should care more about the accuracy of the vote. I couldn’t agree more. But this exercise isn’t about ensuring democratic accuracy. It isn’t about one person-one vote. That’s the Voting Rights Act. It isn’t about making sure everyone’s votes count. That’s why we should amend the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College. This isn’t about access to the vote. That’s why we should change election day, do away with strict voter ID laws, and enshrine the right to vote affirmatively in an amendment to the Constitution. This is about the wrong fight, the wrong time, and no good options.
The reason Clinton’s campaign has now jumped in isn’t because they believe this will change things. Hillary knows she won’t be president and she’s processing that tremendous loss as best as one can expect, I’d suppose. She’s a fighter. But they jumped on this to ensure that Stein doesn’t wholly wreck democracy and the Democratic Party in the process.
I just hope it isn’t too late.
