EDITORIAL: Count on it
As the old adage goes, a fool and his money are soon parted. That truism seems to have been the guiding principle behind Jill Stein’s curious effort to force recounts of the presidential vote in three battleground states.
Ms. Stein, the Green Party’s candidate for president, has never offered a credible explanation for her push to trigger a re-tally of the votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Her mumblings about voting discrepancies and election fraud don’t hold up to serious scrutiny.
As Aaron Blake noted in The Washington Post last week, “There were many other places where such alleged voter fraud could have mattered but where Stein hasn’t bothered pursuing recounts. She happens to have picked states where it would specifically prevent Trump from winning. That certainly helped her raise money for the effort, but it remains a strange coincidence.”
There’s that money thing again. Fox News reported this week that nearly $1 million of the $7.3 million Ms. Stein raised for the recount went to pay consultants, staff and administrative costs, including travel. Not bad for about two week’s work that accomplished nothing.
In the end, the failed effort appears to have been nothing more than a sophisticated bunco scheme targeting gullible partisans wallowing in despair over the election of Mr. Trump.
