Of course, if the election really was hacked, we might have a different war to fight first—with Russia. Let’s recap what they allegedly got up to during the campaigns: they hacked the Democratic National Party, with timed releases via Wikileaks; they infiltrated four states' voter registration systems; and they compromised a Florida-based election-systems vendor. James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, said, “We believe that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

The question now is whether whoever was doing all that hacking would put down their tools just when they could be most effective. In an insultingly effective troll, Putin’s been asking aloud, “Does anyone seriously think that Russia can affect the choice of the American people? Is America a banana republic? America’s a great power. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Halderman has been saying, in effect, no matter how unlikely a hacked election is, a recount is warranted—American voting systems are just that bad. How bad? Elections are not administered by the federal government, nor even by the states, but by the U.S.’s 3,103 counties—most of which have extremely meager budgets. They typically run very, very insecure systems, which engineers have demonstrated over and over again can be hacked in seconds to return false counts. Famously, a computer science lab at Princeton has a voting machine, with anti-tamper seals intact, that’s been hacked to run PacMan.

Epstein estimated the cost of hacking Wisconsin at about $10 a vote.

"The next major conflict will start in cyberspace," says one of the documents Edward Snowden lifted from the NSA. If the government believes that, then it’s obviously insane to spend $600 billion on defense and leave its elections insecure and undefended, but whatever, welcome to America. But it’s willful dereliction not to at least check if any hacking happened.

For instance, after the unnamed "Florida election-systems vendor" was hacked, someone noticed that the only Florida vendor anyone’s aware of is VR Systems, Inc.; North Carolina’s systems, which also came from an unnamed Florida-based vendor, badly malfunctioned on Election Day. “People were being improperly listed as having already voted”—which is a horrible sign—and the electronic voter lists for Durham, the state’s Democratic stronghold, crashed, resulting in long lines and extended voting hours. Which then sparked a fight over whether the extension had been adequate. Either way, this is a Denial of Service—a situation that makes it difficult for voting to occur. We must know if that was accidental or not.

They say that if you have two dogs and one dies, you should let the surviving dog be with the dead dog for a while so that it can internalize that the death. That’s why I got interested in this story a few days ago, creeped out by how little evidence there was ruling out a hack. Finally, my own personal jet fuel and steel beams! I called some of the Wisconsin County Clerks (a decent people, but no match for Fancy Bear). I also spoke to Jeremy Epstein, a senior computing consultant with SRI International, who agreed hacking suspicions were perfectly reasonable. He reflected that “after 20 years in the business, you learn that everything is hackable, it’s just a question of how much effort you want to put in.” Epstein estimated the cost of hacking Wisconsin at about $10 a vote.

The questionable tally was ascribed to human error, and the newly adjusted totals reduced Trump’s 27,000 vote margin in the state to 26,000. There are 71 other counties in Wisconsin, which use the same or similar voting machines.

So, proceeding cautiously here, let’s start with Wisconsin and see where it gets us. On Tuesday someone spotted that election-night results in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, counted more votes towards the presidential election than were actually cast, and that all the fake votes had counted towards Trump. The questionable tally was ascribed to human error, and the newly adjusted totals reduced Trump’s 27,000 vote margin in the state to 26,000. There are 71 other counties in Wisconsin, which use the same or similar voting machines.

All of which provides context for the computer scientists’ exhortation to Hillary Clinton: any statistical weirdness should be viewed with extremely narrowed eyes. The Wisconsin Village of Wonewoc, for instance, saw a -24 percent swing against the Democrats from 2012, and a +18 percent swing for Republicans. That’s enormous! Particularly in a state where every major poll saw a solid Clinton win, which vanished entirely. Swings that big need robust explanations. Even former Republican party director Brandon Scholz couldn’t fathom it: "I am not sure why or how Donald Trump won,” he said, “I've been scratching my head the whole time going, 'What did we miss? What didn't we see? Where did it come from?'"

Well, that’s the question. A total of 830,000 absentee ballots were cast—28 percent of turnout, a lot higher than the 21 percent in 2012, but overall turnout was down. That’s not not weird. You can create narratives to explain these weirdnesses—"shy voters,” the Bradley Effect, and so on—but all you’re doing is making a story to fit the data. After an election that 18 percent of Americans believe was illegitimate, it’s fair to get a mirror out and check that the dog really is, in fact, dead.

Plus, the petitioner pays for the recount. Even if you think it’s a desperate act bound to confirm the result, you might at least welcome the opportunity to suck some of Clinton's sweet Wall-Street-speech cash out into the Rust Belt economy.

Jeremy Epstein, again: “I don’t think the fat lady has sung yet.”

Watch now: Keith Olbermann on the Surprisingly Easy Way to Get Rid of Trump