Tag Archives: recount

local news

Recount? Really?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Is this the new modus operandi for candidates who lose contests for public office?

They get fewer votes than the winner and then yap and yammer about alleged “irregularities” in the counting of the ballots. So it is happening now in the just completed race for mayor of Amarillo, Texas.

Mayor Ginger Nelson was re-elected with 54 percent of the vote. Her closest challenger was someone named Claudette Smith (about whom I know nothing), who finished with 29 percent of the total vote. Let’s see, that’s a 25-percentage point difference between first and second.

And yet, Smith wants a recount. She said this, according to the Amarillo Globe-News: “Since Election Day, I have been inundated with inquiries regarding the outcome and integrity of the election. At the request of a very large number of citizens, I filed a petition for a recount,” Smith said in a statement given to the Globe-News on Tuesday after the Globe-News’ print deadline. “Another candidate on the ballot (in a different race) has requested a recount as well. Many citizens have expressed that the incumbent in my race barely missed a runoff by 4%, which equates to around 800 votes. Additionally, there are a number of questionable incidents that occurred during the election that are being looked at. As a candidate, I pay for the cost of the recount. It does not cost the taxpayers anything. I have agreed to pay these costs. If it was a fair and honest election, I don’t see any reason anyone should object to a recount. It’s what the people want and so that’s what I’ve decided to do.”

Update: Smith comments on recount request submitted for Amarillo mayor race (msn.com)

Ah, ha! There it is! She says Nelson fell just 800 votes of being forced into a runoff. Therefore, Smith said, she needs to recount the tally. Good grief.

The only redeeming quality of this farce is that Smith is going to foot the bill for a recount.

Still, I believe it will prove to be a monumental waste of time.  Oh, and Smith had better not claim any sort of “election theft.”

national news, political news

Stein wants to recount ballots … to what end?

stein

Jill Stein is so indignant at the voting process in Wisconsin she wants them to recount the ballots.

The Green Party presidential candidate isn’t doing this for herself. She finished fourth in the balloting there. No, she is doing it apparently on behalf of Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost the state to Donald Trump by about 25,000 votes.

Here’s the problem with Stein’s quest, as I see it: Clinton ain’t on board, at least not publicly.

Stein managed to raise about $5 million to pay for the recount. She figures there’s sufficient irregularities in the process that it could turn the state toward Clinton. Flipping Wisconsin’s electoral votes, a highly unlikely event, won’t reverse the election.

This is exercise isn’t going to change the outcome.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jill-stein-formally-files-for-wisconsin-recount-as-fundraising-effort-passes-dollar5m/ar-AAkKPWV?li=BBnb7Kz

Please — please! — do not misconstrue my own feelings here. I wish there was ample evidence of vote-tampering and “hacking,” as Stein has alleged. There isn’t. I also wish the outcome had turned out differently. It didn’t.

We’ve got Donald Trump getting ready to become the next president of the United States. Heaven help us.

As for Stein’s quest to reverse one state’s result — which, if successful, could produce recounts in at least two other battleground states, she is mounting the mother of futile challenges.

It strikes me as odd that she is proceeding without any public show of support from the candidate who continues to roll up a significant popular vote margin over the “winner.”

Why is that? My strong hunch is that Hillary knows as well that it’s a futile endeavor. As Stein herself as acknowledged, she has no “smoking gun.”

So … what’s the point?