In a democratic country, the right to vote is the most important among civil rights. Democracy puts the responsibility on us to determine the future by casting our vote wisely. In this context, recounts are the medium for “fair and equitable” system of voting as it shows a clear picture of the whole process, but we have seen very few recounts which lead to any election reversals. It is of a great curiosity of what makes a recount play an important role in the election process and why election reversals are necessary for a transparent electoral venture.
The United States of America has rarely seen any election reversal and it was reported that between 2000 and 2015, there were only 27 recounts out of 4,687 state-wide elections and only three of them overturned the original results. According to Daniel Medwed, an associate professor of Law and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, the purpose of an election reversal is not altering the results rather count every vote to safeguard the institution of elections in America. He also mentioned that there are “There are practical reasons to go for a recount. But they’re outweighed by the more principled reasons, which is to make the system as fair and equitable as possible. And sometimes the only way to do that is to expose the flaws and fight about them”. To follow the principled reason, one must expose the flaws and fight for it and make the system indisputable at any cost.
Though, Political Science professor William Mayer at Northeastern University says that “questions on the integrity of the ballot boxes will have a little negative impact on the electoral process”. In 2018, the election process in Florida faced a margin of 0.5 percent between the governor and the United States senator, which led to a recount by the state law. Though the hand recount showed that the “republican governor Rick Scott had edged out Senator Nelson by 10,033 votes”, it is a clear win without any falsity, according to Mayer.
Rubena Bose
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