Re-Counts Aren't Going to Change the Result, But....

Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated as the 45th President at noon on January 20th, 2017. I don't believe anything other than his own health can prevent that now, for what it's worth. You're not going to make up 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania with a standard re-count. You're probably not going to make up the 10,000 vote margin in Michigan, for that matter. What i'm basically saying in short is that the election results aren't going to change because of Jill Stein's publicity stunt.

This is by no means a good reason to stop doing it though. If you follow Donald Trump on Twitter, or just go to his page like I do, you will see how this recount is making the man completely unhinged. He is lashing out, making up outlandish conspiracies, and undermining the very election that elected him. If you don't want Trump re-elected, or future versions of Trump to be elected, then having him meltdown pretty regularly is a good strategy. If having a re-count bothers the guy who is putting a white supremacist in his White House, then I say have re-counts everywhere.

There is a second reason though to be more interested in this though, and that is the oddity of Trump's victory. David Wasserman at Redistrict and the folks at the Cook Political Report have been maintaining a popular vote tracker, both at the national level, and in all 50 states plus DC. There results show some interesting stuff. They defined "swing" states as those that changed hands from 2012 to 2016, or those that were within 5% in the final results. In those 13 swing states, Donald Trump won by about 830,000 votes, a 48.4-46.6% margin. In the other 37 states and DC, Clinton won by over 3,000,000 votes, a 48.9-45.5% margin. The overall national vote gives Clinton a 2.23 million vote lead, a 48.2-46.5% lead right now. Turnout was up in Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Colorado, to name a few. Turnout was down in Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Turnout on the national level was higher than in 2012. The results are peculiar in only that the "swing" voters in the "swing" states seemed to move exactly opposite to the other 37 states. There is nothing in the tracker that screams "RE-COUNT!"

So, should we do it? Yes, of course there should be a re-count. Donald Trump's victory is among the most odd victories in American history. You have to go back more than a century to find someone lose as badly as he did in the popular vote, but still win the electoral college. Beyond that, his electoral college victory gave him over 300 electoral votes, something that seems almost statistically impossible for having lost the popular vote that bad (I said almost- it's not impossible). His distribution of votes was perfectly placed in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. It's pretty amazing, and given the level of disbelief over it, a second count won't hurt if the disbelievers are willing to pay for it.

Is it odd that he won with his voters being in exactly the right places? Sure. Re-counts won't change that though. If you were to believe that this election were stolen, and if you were to believe that this result were illegitimate, you'd need to prove a mass problem with machines in a state (malware infecting the machines and changing votes type of stuff), which isn't going to be proven in a count. If it were true, it would also really undermine our entire system of voting and force a real look at our democracy. I personally don't think it's 100% impossible, but I think it's extremely unlikely.

Even so, I think it's worth going through. If it makes people feel better about the results, count twice. If it makes Donald Trump act like the crazy man he is, re-count a third time. Nothing will change, but it will make life a little better in America for a few people, so go with it.