Harvard Professors Weigh in on Stein's Efforts to Recount Votes

Green Party candidate Jill Stein plans to seek a recount in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan

Nearly three weeks after the election, election officials in Michigan certified President-elect Donald Trump electoral vote victory on Monday.

Michigan is one of three states where Green Party candidate Jill Stein plans to seek a recount. It's a move that Trump has blasted on social media.

However, Stein’s effort to recount votes in Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania and Michigan has merit, according to Alex Keyssar, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

“The technology is very uneven from state to state and sometimes within the states. We know that errors are not infrequent, Keyssar said.”

Stein is calling for the recount because she says researchers found statistical anomalies in the election.

“To put this to bed with piece of mind we need to count the votes,” said Stein.

Bruce Schneier, a voting expert at the Kennedy School and adjunct lecturer says a recount would not address the possibility of tampering with electronic voting machines.

“There are some weirdness’s in the vote tallies that could be explained by any number of things and election machine hacking is one of them,” Schneier said. “We need to do forensic analysis of the machines and look at the various internet trails, this is a lot of work and it’s unclear to me if a recount includes this.”

Contact Us