A rare post, and a rarer topical one without any snark or attempts at humor.
Hillary Clinton and her team
is NOT 'pushing for', 'supporting', or otherwise taking part in the
effort to have any states electoral results audited and/or recounted.
They
are going to participate in any recounts that occur, and they pretty
much have to simply because their opponents are going to be involved.
But to claim that this means they're part of the push for
recounts is at the best misplaced enthusiasm.
And yet a lot of sites, including the Guardian and even Snopes, are talking about Clinton's sudden reversal, based on
this post by Marc Elias on Medium.
The post starts out by rejecting the necessity of a special effort to recount these states, and repeats that, good and hard, with details as to why it's not necessary, for several paragraphs. Then it finally makes the most lukewarm announcement possible that
now that a recount has been initiated they will
participate, and
if a recount happens in the other states, they will participate
there as well.
Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of
hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not
planned to exercise this option ourselves, 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. If Jill
Stein follows through as she has promised and pursues recounts in
Pennsylvania and Michigan, we will take the same approach in those
states as well. We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these
states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a
recount. But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of
the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our
campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented
on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.
That's all. Participation, if and when recounts occur, to cover their legal behinds.
What does this participation entail?
According to the New York Times, this won't involve any material support, but be limited to paying for the presence of
their lawyers to monitor the process.
This is basically the minimum level of engagement they could possibly take. This is hardly a reversal. It is
not support for Jill Stein's efforts. It is
not endorsement nor is it pushing for the recount.
Now... they may take a stronger position on the recount in the future, but as of the morning of the 28th of November, 2016 this is as far as they have gone.
