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05 December 2016
Forget Jill Stein’s presidential recount vote, let alone trying to label her as a spoiler and “nasty woman” as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump still strive to do.
Leading the charge to examine the results of the general election in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the Green Party’s gutsy and tireless candidate, who believes “Americans deserve an election they can actually trust,” and Clinton should look into the mirror to find out who the real spoiler was, is in reality wanting to drain the source of the swamp in Washington D.C. that has bogged down the working classes, namely a pseudo democracy.
Big Money Politicians Don’t Own Votes
Notifying Big Money politicians with the news they don’t own the peoples’ votes, the recount in Michigan already revealed undervotes (no vote recorded for president on a straight ticket) and overvotes (a wrong vote recorded for president on a straight ticket).
In addition to thousands of spoiled ballots, Donald Trump’s 11,000 lead among 4.8 million votes cast has narrowed too.
Consequently, Michigan Republicans filed a petition to prevent Stein’s “don’t normalize but organize” campaign, hoping to either delay or sabotage the hand counted vote before the Electoral College meets Dec. 19.
Stein Promises to Never Bow to Undemocratic Entities
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, called the recount an “electoral farce” and “scam,” arguing Stein wants to only make money and should not have been allowed to be “aggrieved” by the “election canvass since no recount can be reliably competed in the time required by state and federal law.” Others claim the recount is a quid pro quo between the Stein and Clinton campaigns, even inferring the Obama administration and George Soros were ultimately involved. But Stein fired back calling the accusations “shameful” and “outrageous ” assuring supporters she would never bow to a two-party political system.
Plutocratic System Hacks the Vote
Stein, who has protested home foreclosures and accompanied Water Protectors at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, wants to showcase how undemocratic America’s republican rule actually is, starting with a plutocratic Federal Elections Commission that backs a two-party system. Along with putting up obstacles for third-party candidates – the recount will cost almost $1 million in Michigan and another $3.5 million in a different state – she hopes to expose countless voting problems, including the possibility the machinery can either malfunction or be hacked and manipulated by outside forces.
One Machine One Vote Not Always Accurate
In fact, cyber security experts have long warned of cyber attacks, advising a paper trail is needed to examine the evidence. Computer scientists and election experts have in effect raised serious concerns about election results in papers filed for the Wisconsin recount.
These include the vulnerability of voting machines that could be breached without detection and have a tendency to misread ballot markings. In Michigan, for instance, there were 75,335 under-count tallies, or votes machines did not record as selecting anyone for president. This finding nearly doubled the amount recorded in 2012.
Anxious Minds Equals Hacked Votes
The “we not only have a right to vote, but a right to know who we can vote for” candidate wants to draw attention to how America’s voting infrastructures needs investments too, perhaps even overhauled.
Indeed, just as America’s voting machines and optical scanners are prone to errors and susceptible to outside manipulation, so too can America’s corporate-driven and censored democracy.
In other words, instead of just politicians and corporate owners, a true democracy free from fear and anxiety would ensure equal access to the media and jobs and to education and comprehensive healthcare.
Rank-Choice Voting Would Help Heal a Sick Democracy
“If we want to cure the things that threatens our life,” believes Stein, “we need to heal out sick political system. That is, not just to address our physical ailments, but the things that determine whether we’re going to survive into the next century. That is war, climate change, poverty, and, of course, our pseudo-democracy.”
Along with public confidence that election results are accurate, authentic, and untainted by outside forces, she wants to also see the shift away from a two-party system and towards rank-choice voting, a new way of voting that eliminates voting out of fear or for the lesser of two evils.
Extra! Extra! Read All About It: Stein’s a Threat to Democracy
Moreover, Stein disagreed with Trump’s spat over how the recounts will cost taxpayers money, and “America” unites people and therefore everyone should get behind him to make the nation great again.
Not only did the Green Party candidate tell the President elect petitioning is a First Amendment right, but the recount in each state was driven by a grassroots movement.
What’s more, she reminded him that without a fair and authentic democracy, there can never really be a true and just America. It’s democracy, in other words, that is what makes America and which truly unites people.
For now, the Trump campaign is also warning Americans by not accepting the results of the Electoral College vote, Stein is a threat to “democracy.” Stein, however, wonders how something can be threatened if it doesn’t even exist.
Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)
(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com andwn.com//dallasdarling.)