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NY Times Calls Republican a 'Sore Loser' for Recount Request, Gives Jill Stein a Pass

AP
December 1, 2016

The New York Times editorial board, which has not yet written a word on Jill Stein's costly recount requests, lashed out on Thursday against North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who has not conceded his race due to concerns of "massive voter fraud" in the state.

In the Times piece, headlined "North Carolina’s Sore Loser," the editorial board complained that McCrory has refused to withdraw his request for a recount "despite having no path to victory" and has been "scouring voting rolls for evidence of fraud."

"Despite having no path to victory, he has been engaged in an all-out assault on the integrity of the election system," wrote the editorial board. "It's dishonorable for Mr. McCrory to promote voting fraud myths and add fuel to voter suppression efforts as he’s going out the door."

The Times editorial board has not given the same treatment to the Green Party's Jill Stein, who has initiated recount requests that are expected to cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Stein is fighting for recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—all states where Donald Trump's margin of victory over Hillary Clinton surpasses the margin in North Carolina.

Clinton's lawyers have joined the recount effort, though the campaign says that it failed to find any "evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology." The New York Times has also acknowledged in its pages that there is no "evidence of election tampering."

Though the editorial board has failed to issue an opinion on Stein's claim that the election was rigged by hackers, it did find time to bash Trump for making claims about election fraud without evidence.

"There is no evidence of illegal voting on even a small scale anywhere in the country, let alone a systematic conspiracy involving 'millions,'" wrote the editorial board in Monday's paper. "In addition to insulting law-abiding voters everywhere, these lies about fraud threaten the foundations of American democracy."

In a Thursday op-ed titled "Count Those Votes! Again!," New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote that Stein's recount will have a "positive effect"even though it has no chance of changing the result of the election.

"The one positive effect of the recount, besides reassuring people who worry the Russians might be capable of hacking a massive American vote tally, is the way it reminds the nation, every day, that Donald Trump is one of the least successful presidential candidates in American history," Collins wrote.

The Times column echoed Stein, who told Collins over the phone that "it’s a healing and positive thing to examine the vote."

The Times is not the first to exhibit hypocrisy on the issue of recounts following the election. Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc Elias is participating in Stein's recount even as he said that McCrory "needs to accept his defeat and concede."

Published under: New York Times