Michigan Recount: Necessary Or A Big Waste Of Time?
Some of the state’s top Republicans and Trump supporters are decrying the possibility of a recount.
State elections officials are gearing up for a possible recount of Michigan’s presidential election results. It would be a massive undertaking that’s unprecedented in Michigan history.
Yesterday, a state election board certified the election results, which showed Donald Trump won Michigan by about 10,000 votes. Now, Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s campaign says it will challenge those results.
Is this a good idea? Should such a close result always lead to a recount? Or is this a big waste of time and money?
“There were 84,000 that were blank, that did not have a presidential election vote,” says Detroit News political reporter Chad Livengood. “Jill Stein and some of her supporters want to go back and check some of these ballot in particular. But when you’re doing that, they’d want to do a full recount.”
“There is a pretty hard deadline to try to get done by the 13th of December,” says Livengood. “This is going to have to be done in a very quick fashion. They’re talking about working basically day and night for the next eleven days… And it could turn into a spectacle.”
Some of the state’s top Republicans and Trump supporters are decrying the possibility of a recount.
“(Stein) has said there’s no evidence of fraud, she sees no evidence of hacking, she just wants to feel good about this and let’s do the recount,” says Michigan Republican Party Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel. “I don’t know if I want my taxpayer funds going to do a recount when there’s no significant change that’s expected for a candidate who garnered only one percent of the vote here in Michigan.”
“What’s happening with Jill Stein and this fruitless effort is it is preventing us from moving forward. And it’s going to cost a lot of money and a lot time.”
Click on the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
