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[OuterLimits]

I thought Michigan already did a recount during the last two weeks? She did gain a bit of votes during then, I believe 2,000. She still lost by 10,700 votes.

She is down by 22k in Wisconsin so it would be damn difficult to overcome that.

Then you still have Pennsylvania where she had the biggest loss of the three by 68k. That seems almost impossible to overcome. That is a bigger vote count spread than some states she won like New Hampshire, Minnesota, and maybe Nevada.(would have to check that one)

I'm glad it's not the Hillary camp pushing for this at least after all the criticism of Trump not accepting results. She took the high road and conceded after losing Pennsylvania.

Granted, it's not Jill Stein fans most likely putting up the money for the recount, although she will be the one to benefit from this exposure and money.

 

[Crayon]

Conspiracy mode time - I feel like this is just out of the playbook of the Russians to put more doubt into our democratic process.

In the sense that a conspiracy is any alternative hypothesis then sure. That's a perfectly possible angle. The word conspiracy has been twisted so badly.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

what a complete waste and a scam. If this was such a concern, the Democrats would've filed for a recount. Nobody asked the fucking shitty Green Party to do this. Accept the loss, move on.

They're not going to find a hidden drawer with a shitload of Hillary votes.

This is where I'm at. It sucks but the process has been completed according to the rules.

 

[KingBroly]

Trump is just a useful idiot for Putin. Russia doesn't care about him looking strong or able.

The media's already doing that for Putin if you believe that. But that'd mean the media's in Putin's pocket as well. But it'd also mean the "fake news" on the internet being Putin's handiwork as a counter-balance would be there. But why would the old media want to squash it out if they were all in Putin's pocket?

Again, the more I prod about this Trump is Putin's puppet thing, it just doesn't work.

so she did not take the money and run like some of the people in the fund raising thread worried about

She said she'd ask for recounts. She didn't say they'd get approved. In MI, she simply doesn't have the standing to ask for a recount, nor can she reasonably prove she was aggrieved to the point where she, herself, was cost the state's 16 electoral votes. In PA, 70k+ vote lead, 1.2% up for Trump. With machines that really can't be audited or recount properly without calling into question major concerns. If new votes were found in Philly or Pittsburgh, a whole new bag of concerns would pop up.

 

[Professor Lich]

Conspiracy mode time - I feel like this is just out of the playbook of the Russians to put more doubt into our democratic process.

It's either Puppet Trump controls the US from the inside or the whole nation doubts our government and its processes.

Mother Russia wins either way!

 

[OuterLimits]

I would think these millions could be better spent on helping Democrats gain Congressional seats in 2018 instead of helping Jill Stein. Granted, progressives also need to get off their ass and vote in the midterm, which seems to often be a problem.

Not sure why some Democrats don't show unless it's a Prez race. Meanwhile Republicans rush to the polls in droves for every damn election. Even local and state races, which is why the Republicans have power in many states.

 

[Imperfected]

The argument that this $5,000,000 could have been better spent is kind of absurd to me.

I mean, yes, we certainly could find better uses for the hundreds of millions (have we actually crossed the billions mark?) that get dumped into the presidential campaigns. The nicest possible thing that could be said about the monumental waste of money involved is that a larger-than-average amount of it is coming out of the hordes of wealthy contributors and corporations and at least somewhat returning to the working economy.

I guess if you want to complain about that, sure, but complaining about this drop-in-the-bucket sum going in on top of the absurd amount that's already been spent just seems like a really clumsy and facetious way of saying what you really mean ("This is pointless"), but trying to vainly coach it in philanthropy rather than fatalism.

 

[Armoured Priest]

what a complete waste and a scam. If this was such a concern, the Democrats would've filed for a recount. Nobody asked the fucking shitty Green Party to do this. Accept the loss, move on.

They're not going to find a hidden drawer with a shitload of Hillary votes.

You never know....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/wisconsin-recall-spotlight-shines-on-waukesha-county-clerk-kathy-nickolaus/2012/06/05/gJQAaQ5RGV_blog.html

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/scott-walker-recall-wisconsin-kathy-nickolaus

 

[boiled goose]

It's hard to believe the amount of good that could be done in the world if the $5 million specifically donated for this had been used for literally any charitable endeavor.

Meh. People donated for this specifically. You can make this argument about any amount of money ever spent on anything. Fallacy of relative privation.

 

[blame space]

it's pretty hard to count things.

 

[freenudemacusers]

now that i think of it, how much is it going to cost to audit my ban count?

 

[Bob Coffee]

If anything the president elect should be cheering on this process. The audit will likely show nothings wrong, and the system works. This will strengthen his mandate. If something is found however we have bigger problems at hand. In any case this should be a nice electoral sanity check.

 

[KingBroly]

If anything the president elect should be cheering on this process. The audit will likely show nothings wrong, and the system works. This will strengthen his mandate. If something is found however we have bigger problems at hand. In any case this should be a nice electoral sanity check.

He's too busy to be concerned about that kind of thing right now. He's missed a couple of days of tweeting recently. It doesn't seem like he or the GOP are worried, though.

 

[jWILL253]

Ive asked this before... if it were flipped and this went the other way. Trump teamed with some wingnut, like lets say Glen Beck of old and they put together this recount, citing some mysterious Hacker working for the DNC. How would you react to people funding it?

There's a key point you and others like you keep ignoring...

Only ONE CANDIDATE in this race has close ties to Russia. If Trump lost and were to challenge it, he'd have no probable cause to do so. Trump's numerous conflicts of interests are probable cause for literally everything about his campaign to be investigated.

 

[The Albatross]

Heard a fairly interesting theory that this recount is being pushed heavily by Russian Times, Pravda, and Stein, indicating that it's not so much that Russia supports Trump, but that supporting Trump and then encouraging this recount and election confidence issues significantly weakens the US.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Interesting.

A literal scam.

 

[btrboyev]

If anything the president elect should be cheering on this process. The audit will likely show nothings wrong, and the system works. This will strengthen his mandate. If something is found however we have bigger problems at hand. In any case this should be a nice electoral sanity check.

He has no mandate. He's down by over 2 million votes in the country.

 

[KingBroly]

There's a key point you and others like you keep ignoring...

Only ONE CANDIDATE in this race has close ties to Russia. If Trump lost and were to challenge it, he'd have no probable cause to do so. Trump's numerous conflicts of interests are probable cause for literally everything about his campaign to be investigated.

It's not like the Clinton Foundation investigation by Congress is going away, either. And if Trump got thrown out because of conflicts of interest, you'd have Pence in the saddle. I doubt many Democrats will want an investigation if they know it leads to that.

Heard a fairly interesting theory that this recount is being pushed heavily by Russian Times, Pravda, and Stein, indicating that it's not so much that Russia supports Trump, but that supporting Trump and then encouraging this recount and election confidence issues significantly weakens the US.

And I heard a lot of Democrat votes were thrown out in Wisconsin. But I don't believe it. Conspiracy theories aren't my thing. But I imagine someday one will shake me to my moral core so bad that I'll begin believing every one of them.

EDIT:

He has no mandate. He's down by over 2 million votes in the country.

He wasn't even projected to get 210 EC votes yet got 306. That's a mandate because those were the stakes of the election given the perception going in. He overperformed massively.. If it was by popular vote, you'd have to go back and re-run the entire race because the entire dynamics of the campaign would be different.

 

[msdstc]

There's a key point you and others like you keep ignoring...

Only ONE CANDIDATE in this race has close ties to Russia. If Trump lost and were to challenge it, he'd have no probable cause to do so. Trump's numerous conflicts of interests are probable cause for literally everything about his campaign to be investigated.

There is no probable cause here though, you're making it up. There is no proof whatsoever Russia has done anything here in terms of "hacking" voting machines, 0. The alternative argument would be that Hillary has ties to multiple powerful people and there was "evidence" they tampered with the results and the audit was necessary. Your bias is blinding you to the facts here.

 

[FriedConsole]

 

[Caja 117]

So, if they discover fraud and then WI ends up fliping Blue, then what? Recounts everywhere? I think the consequence of this hapening will just be ugly.

 

[Torokil]

 

[Caja 117]

Fake news striking again...

 

[MIMIC]

I wasn't concerned until my reasonable friends started to unironically talk about Jill Stein saving the country.

I am now concerned.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Counter-coup? So Trump being elected was a coup?

 

[KingBroly]

I feel like if it went the way he said, it'd bolster his credibility a lot. Which his opponents don't want...I guess.

 

[Ryzaki009]

lol Takei not like this.

That said I fully admit to being a hypocrite on this matter. Trump is just too much. Bush was taking the L. This is just...no.

 

[NullPointer]

If anything the president elect should be cheering on this process. The audit will likely show nothings wrong, and the system works. This will strengthen his mandate. If something is found however we have bigger problems at hand. In any case this should be a nice electoral sanity check.

He doesn't have a mandate after losing the popular vote by 2 million. He's won, and Republicans are now in control, but the country is stiffly divided, with more flesh and blood voters on the side of the Democrats.

But this recount and audit isn't a check on the results as much as a check on the process.

 

[Polari]

He has no mandate. He's down by over 2 million votes in the country.

He has a mandate because those are the rules of the game. Love it or hate it the EC isn't going away any time soon.

 

[Calamari41]

Some of you guys are really showing your age when you actively hope that a recount will help a candidate make up 10k, 30k, or 70k votes.

Vote totals change by hundreds, maybe one or two thousand... but not by tens of thousands. There were two very high profile recounts in 2000 and 2008 that bore this out.

You are all embarrassing yourselves.

 

[StickSoldier]

So, does Hillary want this or not? I wonder...

 

[Wilsongt]

He has no mandate. He's down by over 2 million votes in the country.

That's not really a mandate, tho... Clinton's lead is coming from states she soundly won. Not from states in which she lost.

 

[KingBroly]

Some of you guys are really showing your age when you actively hope that a recount will help a candidate make up 10k, 30k, or 70k votes.

Vote totals change by hundreds, maybe one or two thousand... but not by tens of thousands. There were two very high profile recounts in 2000 and 2008 that bore this out.

You are all embarrassing yourselves.

I found a little snippet about WI voter recounts:

in the 19 statewide recounts from 2000 and 2012, only three have resulted in changed election outcomes. In these races, the initial margins were 0.009%, 0.061% and 0.010%; in other words, these were extremely close races. It is exceptionally rare to have such close elections where a recount really might change the outcome.

It's not sourced though, so I'm sorry, but it's an interesting look. A shift of over 22k (Trump's lead in WI) votes would be destructive, to say the last.

So, does Hillary want this or not? I wonder...

I imagine she does, but if she called for it herself she'd look like a sore loser (even more than she already does with the reports last week that she got angry/attacked people after losing). One of theories floated around is that Stein was paid by Clinton's camp to do this and used a bot to funnel the money slowly to her over time to make it look natural. Dunno if I believe it though.

 

[RustyNails]

So, does Hillary want this or not? I wonder...

Probably not.

 

[digdug2k]

I feel like election audits like this should be part of the election process already. That said, this isn't going to change anything in any way, shape or form: Trump is the President-elect and will remain so, whatever happens here.

I think some states do have mandatory random checks. Enough to determine if there was some fraud going on. States gonna be states though.

 

[KingBroly]

I think some states do have mandatory random checks. Enough to determine if there was some fraud going on. States gonna be states though.

Wisconsin is 1 of those states.

 

[Ashodin]

so she did not take the money and run like some of the people in the fund raising thread worried about

this is good

I know what a crazy thing to think!

 

[Tall4Life]

This is just going to make Trump's victory more legitimate and "right", not put doubt in our system.

 

[msdstc]

I found a little snippet about WI voter recounts:


It's not sourced though, so I'm sorry, but it's an interesting look. A shift of over 22k (Trump's lead in WI) votes would be destructive, to say the last.




I imagine she does, but if she called for it herself she'd look like a sore loser (even more than she already does with the reports last week that she got angry/attacked people after losing). One of theories floated around is that Stein was paid by Clinton's camp to do this and used a bot to funnel the money slowly to her over time to make it look natural. Dunno if I believe it though.

Dude come on.... you've been on board in this thread that this whole thing is ridiculous, yet you post a crazy ass conspiracy theory like that?

 

[KingBroly]

This is just going to make Trump's victory more legitimate and "right", not put doubt in our system.

What result does that? Any vote shrinkage between Trump and Clinton is gonna keep people calling foul. In order to make it look like Trump won legit, he'd have to increase his lead, don't ya think?

Dude come on.... you've been on board in this thread that this whole thing is ridiculous, yet you post a crazy ass conspiracy theory like that?

Like I said, I don't believe it. Just like I didn't believe when people here thought Russia had indoctrinated Trump with some kind of sex ring video. That...was really strange.

 

[guek]

The more I think about this, the more it pisses me off. Not because it's unprincipled, I get why some people want it, but the likelihood of uncovering anything is close enough to zero that I'm annoyed this story is grabbing media attention when they could be talking about the NDAPL or talking about the impending doom of climate change or doing a better job of exposing Steve Bannon or any number of other things that aren't just an enormous distraction from things that are going to significantly impact people's lives in the near future.

 

[Downhome]

Like I said before, all this will end up doing is helping Trump, for multiple reasons. For that, screw or, I'm glad it's happening.

Since the year 2000 these results were only the third closest as well. There is absolutely no reason at all for this to take place, it's why someone sane like Hillary Clinton didn't beg for it herself, and it looks some nutjob like Jill Stein to make it happen.

It doesn't help that so many desperate Clinton supporters or anti-Trump folks are pulling for it to happen though. It's flat out ridiculous.

 

[Sonic Boom]

I kicked in $10.

I recognize this is probably a bunch of bullshit, but since the election, I've decided that being a reasonable, rational human being has no payoff where politics is concerned. I'm taking the "if you can't beat them, join them" approach from now on.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

The more I think about this, the more it pisses me off. Not because it's unprincipled, I get why some people want it, but the likelihood of uncovering anything is close enough to zero that I'm annoyed this story is grabbing media attention when they could be talking about the NDAPL or talking about the impending doom of climate change or doing a better job of exposing Steve Bannon or any number of other things that aren't just an enormous distraction from things that are going to significantly impact people's lives in the near future.

If the media was willing to pay attention to those kinds of urgent issues, we probably wouldn't have a president trump right now.

 

[DR2K]

This is just going to make Trump's victory more legitimate and "right", not put doubt in our system.

So both sides are satisfied?

The election really should have been put on hold after the FBI and Russia intervened. Everything about this election is fucking off.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Wow I only read half of the last page on this and I already saw 3 different nutty conpiracy theories.

 

[radios shipping overview]

Why does Alex Jones have a 909, a 303, several 606s, an 808... Is he into making Detroit techno?

That's the real Infowars story.

 

[KingBroly]

So both sides are satisfied?

The election really should have been put on hold after the FBI and Russia intervened. Everything about this election is fucking off.

Election Day is hard-written into the Constitution. Can't change it that easily.

No one suspects foul play in any of these states, and hasn't since the election. So why now? It's highly questionable for many different reasons. A wildly different result in any or all of the 3 states would case a major panic (Especially PA who doesn't have a way to recount things properly, but ESPECIALLY MI since they counted twice already). We'd have multiple results, all wildly different. We'd have no idea where we'd stand at that point.

 

[perfectchaos007]

So both sides are satisfied?

The election really should have been put on hold after the FBI and Russia intervened. Everything about this election is fucking off.

The polling stations in Pennsylvania needed to be upgraded before the election. Since that state was supposed to go to Clinton anyway, I feel like there wasn't enough push from both sides to get them fixed. Now that Trump won that state, there's literally no paper trail to do a recount there. There could have been if they updated the booths before the election

 

[Cartman86]

Election Day is hard-written into the Constitution. Can't change it that easily.

No one suspects foul play in any of these states, and hasn't since the election. So why now? It's highly questionable for many different reasons. A wildly different result in any or all of the 3 states would case a major panic (Especially PA who doesn't have a way to recount things properly, but ESPECIALLY MI since they counted twice already). We'd have multiple results, all wildly different. We'd have no idea where we'd stand at that point.

I feel like news is going real fast. What happened with the couple security experts who supposedly asked the Clinton camp to contest cause they felt the numbers seemed off? Not real?