Harvard Profs Say Stein's Recount Effort Won't Affect Election Results

A Harvard College graduate turned third-party presidential candidate is grabbing national headlines this week after she launched an effort to recount votes in three states Donald Trump won in the 2016 presidential election.

Jill E. Stein ’72-73, the presidential nominee of the Green Party, has called for vote recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan because she believes the software used for electronic voting was hacked. The three states were key in Trump's upset victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton earlier this month.

But some Harvard professors said voters should not expect Stein's recount effort, which has raised $6.4 million of a $7 million goal, to overturn or substantively change the results of the election.

By Melanie Y. Fu

“Recounts are useful in terms of guaranteeing the outcome is what it’s supposed to be, or what we thought it would be. They typically don’t shift more than 500 votes, one way or the other,” said Stephen D. Ansolabehere, a professor in the Government Department. But he noted that “there have been cases” where the recounts have reversed election outcomes.

David C. King, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, said he believes Michigan should conduct a recount. Trump won Michigan with a 10,704 vote lead over Clinton—a result only announced Monday because of the close results.

“Michigan, for example, looks so close that they’re going to have to recount. Wisconsin, I don’t understand why there’s a recount going on because the outcome is not close enough to warrant one,” King said. “Recounts are helpful because they help us to refine our systems going forward, but I don’t think that we’ll find widespread problems with how the election was actually handled in terms of the machines and counting technology.”

Ansolabehere also said the recounts may reveal voting problems in individual towns.

“Having a decentralized system is a good thing. It gives you some resilience, because it’s hard to hack 8000 different towns at the same time,” Ansolabehere said. “The quality of town-level government administration determines the quality of election administration. So to the extent that we’re going to find things, it’s going to be in a very localized and decentralized way.”

Some Stein supporters have nevertheless stood by her recount effort. Ian Jackson—the treasurer for the Massachusetts branch of the Green-Rainbow Party—said the state organization raised $50,000 towards the recount since last Wednesday, when the party decided to throw their support behind Stein’s effort.

“We raised considerably less than them [the Stein campaign], but still stand ready to help with our donations if possible or appropriate, depending on what they need,” Jackson said. He criticized a series of tweets President-elect Donald Trump posted Sunday railing against the recount effort and "millions of people who voted illegally."

“I think that it behooves everyone to try to stick to factual information. If you don’t have facts to back it up, be quiet,” Jackson said. “What the Green Party and Jill Stein are trying to do is use a legal process to check those facts.”

Stein did not respond to request for comment.