I suppose this is what a Jill Stein presidency would have been like, except that it would have been hundreds of billions wasted on pointless exercises instead of a mere $3 million. We Michigan taxpayers should be grateful, I guess, that we only got a taste of such absurdity - however bitter the taste may have been.
After several days in which state courts tussled with federal courts over whether the recount should go on, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith finally came down on the side of the state and ruled that the recount needs to stop - because there was never any legitimate legal cause for it in the first place:
The manual statewide recount cost as much as $3 million but stopped after U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith lifted a temporary restraining order preventing state officials from stopping a recount prompted by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. A state election board could end the recount at a scheduled Thursday meeting.
Stein failed to show she was an aggrieved candidate as defined by state law and entitled to a recount, the judge said. He concluded Stein’s request to test the election system’s vulnerability to fraud lacked evidence.
“The vulnerability of our system of voting poses the threat of a potentially devastating attack on the integrity of our election system,” Goldsmith wrote.
“But invoking a court’s aid to remedy that problem in the manner plaintiffs have chosen — seeking a recount as an audit of the election to test whether the vulnerability led to actual compromise of the voting system — has never been endorsed by any court, and would require, at a minimum, evidence of significant fraud or mistake — and not speculative fear of them. Such evidence has not been presented here.”
Overcounting of votes in Democrat counties
There is still the matter of the state's Board of Canvassers formally voting to terminate the recount, which could happen this morning at a 9:30 a.m. meeting. By law, the makeup of the Board of Canvassers is two Republicans and two Democrats, so there's a chance the two Democrats could stubbornly refuse to end the recount. But I doubt it. It's already cost Michigan taxpayers a lot of money and the only issues it's revealed have involved overcounting of votes in Democrat counties. People in the state are highly irritated that they've been forced to take part in this charade, and everyone is ready for it to be over.
I expect the full Board of Canvassers to make that happen this morning.
It really is absurd that it ever got this far, though. Not only did Jill Stein have no chance of prevailing in any recount, but Hillary Clinton didn't either, and Stein knew that perfectly well. Stein didn't even have flimsy evidence to back up suggestions of improprieties. The only basis for this appeared to be that Michigan was kind of close, and the left's candidate lost, so hey, let's put every election worker in Michigan through a pointless, monthlong slog that in the end won't change a damn thing.
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Stein to go away, for good, and take the Clintons with her
Stein should have been laughed out of the state. And yet because she was able to raise a few million dollars to pay some - but by no means all - of the cost, this idiocy had to go on.
I hope this doesn't turn into a standard tactic of the left whenever they lose a close state. Quick online fundraising can generate a lot of cash from young liberals who are easily persuaded that they wuz robbed, and people like Stein can give their staffs and lawyers a nice extra payday long after a hopeless campaign has been lost. U.S. elections won't be over until mid-December if we have to go through this crap every four years.
At Michigan is finally done with this. All that's left now is to find out how much Trump's margin of victory has grown in Wisconsin. And for Stein to go away, for good, and take the Clintons with her.
