Election Recount

President-Elect Donald Trump has been blowing up Twitter these past 24 hours in response to Jill Stein's request for a recount in Wisconsin, and presumably Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ms. Stein, the Presidential candidate of the Green Party has been raising money in order to ask for a recount in Wisconsin. Some of her representatives have cited evidence of irregularities, although no hard evidence has been put forth. A representative of the Clinton campaign, announced that her campaign will be "participating" his quote: "but now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." It is not clear, at least to me, what participating entails. Donald Trump, in a flurry of seven (so far) tweets, expressed his outrage that this was happening. Included in this post are images of two of the tweets, the other five don't really add much to his "argument". 

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?lang=en

I'm not sure what Stein is attempting to accomplish with these recounts. While it is true that a different winner in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would result in a different overall electoral college winner, this would not benefit Stein and the Green party directly. And I don't see where it would benefit Clinton either. All this can do is reflect badly on the Democrats as a party, unless there is actual evidence of massive vote tampering, fraud or system hacking, which Clinton's spokesman say they have no indication that it exists. 

Throughout the campaign, and even during the primaries, Donald Trump loudly proclaimed that the system was rigged against him and insisted that the only way that he could lose would be if it were stolen from him. His insistence that the results would be rigged against him became more shrill and paranoid as Election Day grew closer and the majority of polls showed Clinton ahead. His campaign attempted to water down his message by claiming that by "rigged", he meant that the media and the pollsters were reporting in such a way to cause him to lose, despite the disdain he and his followers have for mainstream media and the polls. His refusal to say whether he would accept the results of the election struck many as a prelude to an insurrection as some of his supporters (voters, not those in his campaign) talked about arming themselves to resist a Clinton Presidency. And let's not forget Trump's implied encouragement for 'Second Amendment people' to tale action to prevent a President Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court Justices. Trump's people compared his refusal to pledge to accept the election results as similar to Al Gore's challenges to the Florida vote in the 2000 election. 

Now President-Elect Trump, who implied throughout the campaign that he would not accept any result except a win for him, he's upset that one of his opponents, supported by another, are asking for recounts, which is their legal right to do. He has been quoting and misquoting Clinton and the Democrats. One of the things he's claiming is that the Democrats insisted that the election night tabulations be accepted. This is not true. They said all along that they (including Clinton) would "accept the election results" - these "results" include whatever a hypothetical recount would come up with. They did not say that once the counts were finalized that they would not accept them. This may seem like a fine distinction, but it's the difference between ensuring that vote tabulation is fair and accurate and staging a coup. Trump also pointed to Clinton's concession and her words about working with Trump and giving him the chance to lead as negating any option for legal action to question vote results. I was not aware that a concession held any legal authority. 

What is Trump afraid of? With all of his talk about election rigging and his predilection for projecting his own antics onto others, I have heard some speculation that it was Trump who was behind some actual rigging. Is he worried that some of his own tampering will come to light? If he is so confident that these recounts will not change anything, why is he so worked up about them? Why would he care that Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton are wasting time and money? He's accusing his opponents of hypocrisy, but I see a lot of hypocrisy on his part.