Senator Mike Parson released this announcement in regard to the recount effort taking place on Amendment 1, “Right To Farm,” which passed in August by just over a 2,000 vote margin statewide:
“It is a shame the taxpayers have had to foot the bill for this recount when it was clear the outcome would not be changed,” said Parson, “The effort and expense for this project has been significant. I am looking forward to the results being certified and this important language being added to the Missouri Constitution.”
I’m sure that if those 2,000 votes had fallen to the other side, the Senator from Farm Bureau would have held his head high and accepted defeat gracefully, without even a passing thought about making taxpayers “foot the bill.”
…then as a member of the General Assembly he could easily introduce legislation to change the statutes. But, he won’t.
Of course, he won’t bother to address the uncomfortable discrepancies between the initial certified vote counts and the additional legally cast votes (according to the uniform counting standard) that the optical scanners didn’t catch the first time which were tallied in the hand recount. And there is the even more troubling discrepancies in the other direction, votes which were initially tabulated by optical scanners which the hand recount determined to be non votes. That’s our current reality. That’s why there’s a recount provision.
Interestingly, the republican philosophy in regard to the sacred right to vote appears to be “close enough” works for horse shoes, why not in counting the votes?