Recounts Are Only As Good As They Are Allowed To Be

From flickr.com/photos/14834045@N04/6306132745/: Voting
(Image by League of Women Voters of California)   Details   DMCA

The recount — a major and massive effort to protect democracy by shining light on an electoral process designed for concealment — has thus far been of dubious, if not negative, value.

But the lessons learned can be invaluable:

1) The American vote-counting process has been revealed as a process designed to conceal;

2) Recounts and, by extension, paper ballots, unless hand counted in public on election night, are in no way sufficient to ensure the honesty, accuracy, and fidelity of that process; and

3) American vote counting must, by public demand and public action, be brought into the light and made openly observable so that faith in the most fundamental of democratic processes can be restored.