OK, after reading yet another comment that the Democrats «are willing to tear apart the system rather than admit defeat,» I feel compelled to throw in some historical perspective.
From the commentary piece
“It’s a Myth That Nixon Acquiesced in 1960”, by David Greenberg, Los Angeles Times, Friday 10 November 2000 (I won’t provide a link since LA Times links disappear after a few days), I learned the following:
After the extremely close 1960 election, on 11 November, three days after the election, Thruston B. Morton, Kentucky senator and Replublican Party national chairman, launched bids for recounts or investigations in not just Illinois and Texas (where there had been allegations of state ballot fixing) but also Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Robert H. Finch and Leonard W. Hall (close friends of Richard Nixon) sent agents to conduct “field checks” in eight of those 11 battleground states.
In some states (such as New Jersey or Illinois) the GOP obtained recounts without changing the final vote, in other states (Texas) the bid for recounds was rejected by a judge.
(The author of the article goes on to conclude that in his opinion Richard Nixon was behind these efforts but did not advocate them openly).
If the present-day situation were reversed, there is no doubt in my mind that the Republican party would be disputing votes just as acrimoniously, and I would not blame them, because after all the time, money and efforts spent on a political campaign it would be foolish not to want to ensure that the vote counts are correct.