From The Hill:
Kucinich, who placed at the back of the Democratic field with less than 1.4 percent of the votes, said in a letter to New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner that there were "possible vote-count irregularities" that have been "fueled by the stunning disparities between various 'independent' pre-election polls and the actual election results.
If there were no irregularities in NH, then the recount will help strengthen our faith in our system.
I do believe in democracy, and strengthening it. For me, it is a lot more important that the process has integrity than having my side winning.
It is the principle of having transparent and accurate elections.
People have good reasons to doubt the American electoral system. Frankly, I was appalled when I came back to the U.S. and found how primitive the electoral system is in this country.
And the fraud-o-matic computer voting only makes it a lot easier to cheat and a lot harder to get caught.
I don't believe that there was electoral fraud in NH, but since there wasn't, why not have a recount and give peace of mind to everyone who does doubt it? It will bring more trust in the process.
And your comment about the cost: since we can waste tax dollars on an imperial war overseas, I believe that we can afford to pay for recounts to further strengthen our democracy.
The controversy is: 1) that the pre-election polls were so wrong; 2) that it's possible that the exit polls were also wrong, but we'll never know because of the exclusive arrangement between Edison/Mitofsky, the exit pollster that screwed up the Kerry-Bush race in Ohio in 2004, and the media; and, 3) some of NH's precincts use questionably secure optical scanning machines to count and some still use hand counting.
There is evidence that Obama won in the NH precincts that don't have the counting machines. That's strange, but I can understand why Obama doesn't want to look like a sore loser in calling for a statewide recount.
There may not be much we can do about the media and their choice of exit pollster, but until it can be demonstrated that machines can't be rigged, we should demand paper hand-marked ballots, and, of course, that the strictest procedures be used to safeguard those ballots. Even if a good argument can be made for using optical scanning machines to count the hand-marked ballots, would-be election thieves would know that a paper trail exists to undo their crime.
There's plenty of competition in the pre-election polling industry, including the polls conducted by the opposing campaigns themselves. When election outcomes are surprising, I support mandatory recounts regardless of whether the disappointed candidate calls for it.
Republicans and the naive will claim that this is unnecessarily expensive, but the cost to our feelings about government is far greater when the election outcomes are suspect. A big part of political apathy and low turnout, especially among the disadvantaged, is the feeling that one's vote doesn't count. When there's strong evidence that votes weren't accurately counted, and we just shrug and move on, the signal that sends is devastating.
I doubt it will change anything for the candidate I was pulling for, and may not change anything for anyone. But we need to know if we can trust that our votes are counted properly.