Much like the generals of the early 20th century who were accused of always preparing for the war already past but not the war upcoming, many of my Democrat, liberal, and progressive friends are still stuck in the backwash of the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. That election, you may remember, hinged upon the results in Florida, which was initially called for Mr. Bush—along with the presidential election itself—until massive discrepancies discovered in the way the ballots had been interpreted in the first count caused a recount to be ordered. Despite promising signs—or, perhaps, because of promising signs—that the recount would reverse the Florida results, giving both Florida and the presidency to Mr. Gore, the United States Supreme Court stepped in, halted the counting, and handed the crown to Mr. Bush. Many on the left never forgave Mr. Gore for giving in at that point and conceding the election, and ever afterwards have held onto the pledge that if such a situation ever came up again, they would both call for recounts and fight to keep them going to the bitter end.

Thus, no-one should be surprised that following the surprise and shock of the Trump victory in the recent presidential election, many Democrats immediately called for and supported a recount in states where they thought a victory by Ms. Clinton might have been stolen.

But 2000 Florida, with its notorious hanging chads and interpretive counting, was a special case that could never be confused with what happened in 2016. And so even before this year’s recount began to go off the rails (“Michigan Recount Over; Pennsylvania Sets Hearing” Washington Post December 8, 2016; “Trump’s Lead In Wisconsin Barely Changes As Wisconsin’s Recount Continues” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 7, 2016), there seemed little chance of this a recount turning up enough deliberate fraud or inadvertent miscount to swing the election from Mr. Trump to Ms. Clinton.

The problem is, though there indeed may have been massive enough fraud in the 2016 election to give the victory to Mr. Trump, to paraphrase the old song, we were probably looking for that fraud in all the wrong places. [To Complete Column]