Green Party leads election recount: justified or futile?

Blake Blevins

America watched the recent election in awe, and few expected the cards to fall just how they did with Trump winning many historically blue states. While some simply accredited this abnormality to the unique circumstances surrounding the candidates, others grew suspicious. 

The uneasy feelings of many citizens reached fruition when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein announced she was seeking a recount for three deciding states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

 Thursday, a recount began in Wisconsin, while a recount in Michigan is scheduled to begin soon. 

Proponents of the recount cited claims of discrepancies between results gathered from paper ballots and those recorded electronically, and after allegations of Russian hackers attempting to influence the election, many feel that similar attacks on voting machines are feasible. 

Opposition to the recount has been made on the grounds that Hillary Clinton is using a recount as means to inadvertently challenge election results after conceding to a Trump victory. 

Interestingly enough, Trump has expressed his own qualms with election results. One recent tweet reads, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Millions of illegal votes would be an earth-shattering development, as the United States has never faced voter fraud on such a mass scale. One would think that the soon-to-be president would be hard-pressed to investigate such a breach in the integrity of our country’s democratic process. Regardless of whether statewide recounts are justified, if voters are so convinced of their necessity, what harm could possibly result and who knows what we could find?

Recounts could show evidence of Russian interference, millions of cases of voter fraud, or even reaffirming of the honesty of the systems we have in place. 

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