Counties Finally Paid......But What Does This Say About Our Recount System?

by Dog Gone

I read about Tom Emmer paying off the debt for his part of the recount expenses from December 2010.

I applaud Tom Emmer for stepping up and paying off the counties that have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  It has been more than six months 20 counties have gone unpaid.

But to be fair and objective, it is not as if Emmer was using his own money, and it is not as if this unpaid debt has been a big secret either. It has been well publicized.  Candidate Emmer should have cared enough about the recount on his behalf to have followed up on this long before when it became obvious that Tony Sutton was either indifferent or inadequate to resolving the problem (including apparently NOT talking to Emmer). Better late than never is not the same as good, it is only an improvement on bad and worse. 

Emmer and his organization caused those expenses to be far worse than they needed to be by making bogus ballot challenges.  They were aggressive in pressuring those counties to toe their time line, while the Emmer campaign and the GOP and their recount entity have NOT been similarly time conscientious.  They have employed an offensive and hypocritical double standard while claiming to stand for fiscal responsibility.

Counties left holding the Emmer campaign recount bag have considered demanding payment up front in future.  I don't think that is the answer. 

Fair and accurate recounts where appropriate is something that is important to all of us, not just the candidates.  We have seen, in the recent Wisconsin recount, just how less efficiently, how costly, and probably how inaccurately a recount CAN be conducted.

In view of the recent recount history from the last two election cycles, we would be wise to require all parties involved to post a bond prior to demanding a recount other than the recounts mandated by our current election law.  That would require a fraction of the full costs of the recounts to be posted.  It would save the counties from suffering from the lack of commitment to their responsibilities that were demonstrated by the GOP this time around.  Let the payment of money be between the political parties that seek an optional recount and the provider of their bond, rather than the counties.

That would reduce the problem to a simpler equation, by making the transaction between fewer parties. County governments and county taxpayers - the 'we the people' who get so much lip service and so little REAL service from the right - would not end up being the victim next time of these political private choices.  We need to perform recounts; Minnesota sets examples of how to do so that are highly regarded in election law.

Lets do more than we do now.  Lets make sure that there is a funding mechanism that doesn't penalize the smaller, more local levels of government, the very ones that did an excellent job of performing the recount, at the whim of political parties.  God only knows what harm the transfer of state costs to these county units are going to do the next time we need to do a recount.  They may very well NOT be able to perform a recount as well next time because of the prohibitive costs and the risks of being left on the hook for them.

So, lets prepare for that eventuality now.