Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders doesn’t expect there to be “profound change” as a result of the last-minute campaign to hold recounts in three swing states.
“No one expects there to be profound change, but there’s nothing wrong with going through the process,” the former Democratic candidate for president said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The issue right now, it seems to me, at this particular moment in American history is whether Donald Trump is going to keep faith with the promises that he made to the American people,” he added.
Green Party presidential contender Jill Stein has led an effort this week that has raised millions of dollars to fund the recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. On Friday, Wisconsin became the first of the battleground states to receive an official request for a recount. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign is also participating in the recount campaign.
The Green Party does have the “legal right” to request recounts, Sanders noted. “We have recounts. Probably almost every election, there’s a recount.”
Sanders said he thinks the Electoral College system needs to be re-examined, pointing out that President-elect Trump has a large advantage over Clinton in the Electoral College, but he lost the popular vote by over 2 million votes.
“On the surface, that’s a little bit weird,” Sanders said.
“The second thing that bothers me is that, as everybody knows, that, during the campaign, we have states, California, New York, and many others that are traditionally Democratic,” Sanders continued. “You got a whole lot of states that are traditionally Republican. The needs and the people of those states are ignored during the political process.
“And then what ends up happening is campaigns basically are about 16, 17 states, battleground states, in this country. And I think that’s unfair to the other 30-plus states that also would like to be participating in the political process.”
Stein claims she is not pushing for the recounts in support of Clinton (who stands to gain the most from overturning the states), and is instead looking to address reports of discrepancies in counties where Trump earned far more votes than expected and possible hackings of electronic voting machines. But while she pushes to confirm the integrity of the results, some Clinton supporters are hoping against hope that all three swing states are overturned, which would hand the Democrat an Electoral College victory.
