People have a right to a recount if they want one. We have a right to ask questions about the ethics and validity of any governmental process to make sure that people are behaving in a proper manner.
As for recent elections, several states including Nebraska and Georgia had startling upsets. Hagel, a Nebraskan Republican, won with 83 percent of the votes, in nearly all demographic groups, which is unprecedented. He also was the previous head of the company that installs, programs and runs the electronic voting machines for Nebraska, a company he continues to own part interest in. He did not properly disclose this, and a Senate Ethics Committee director later resigned because of it. The programming of these machines is not known outside of the company and the votes received on Election Day were not available for review afterwards. It is a reasonable thing to want to know why in Hagel’s case, and it is a reasonable thing to want to know why in 2004’s presidential election, when so much hangs in the balance.
There is a documented chain of potentially unethical behavior, which should be investigated. Voting machines should be investigated not only for fraud, but also for security concerns. And every vote should be counted, not only because we have a protected right to vote in this country, but also because we have a right to question whether that vote is being violated.