but it uses the other four you mentioned to prop up support.

Population of Combined Statistical Areas (2015)

A combined statistical area (CSA) is composed of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) in the United States and Puerto Rico that can demonstrate economic or social linkage.

New York etc. - 23.7 million
LA, etc. - 19.7 million
Chicago, etc. - 9.9 million
Washington DC, etc. - 9.6 million
San Fransisco, etc. - 8.7 million
Boston, etc. - 8.1 million

There's 79.7 million out of 321 million (2015), or 24.8 %

So, yes, basically. Six metro areas account for a quarter of the population. A very large state like California or Texas has a couple of major metro areas, most have only one, some only have a lesser metro area.
This is the counter argument to popular vote elections for President - candidates would only campaign in the top 20 metro areas and the rest of the country would be totally ignored.
On a national scale we speak of "fly over country", everything except the metroplexes on the east and west coasts. Within the states of the flyover country, the lesser metro areas manage to ignore everything else. And all the resources come from "out here" and nobody gives two hoots about us.

According to an article yesterday in The Guardian:

A growing number of academics and activists are calling for US authorities to fully audit or recount the 2016 presidential election vote in key battleground states, in case the results could have been skewed by foreign hackers.

The loose coalition, which is urging Hillary Clinton’s campaign to join its fight, is preparing to deliver a report detailing its concerns to congressional committee chairs and federal authorities early next week, according to two people involved.

The document, which is currently 18 pages long, focuses on concerns about the results in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“I’m interested in verifying the vote,” said Dr Barbara Simons, an adviser to the US election assistance commission and expert on electronic voting. “We need to have post-election ballot audits.” Simons is understood to have contributed analysis to the effort but declined to characterise the precise nature of her involvement.

A second group of analysts, led by the National Voting Rights Institute founder John Bonifaz and Professor Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, is also taking part in the push for a review, and has been in contact with Simons.

... dozens of professors specialising in cybersecurity, defense, and elections have in the past two days signed an open letter to congressional leaders stating that they are “deeply troubled” by previous reports of foreign interference, and requesting swift action by lawmakers.

Besides these various "experts", I noticed that Greg Palast, who has been doing yeoman work on the issue of election fraud and hackable voting machines for well over a decade, is also touting the recount via Twitter.

So my question for you, Professor, is how is it that all these alleged experts, these smart people who one would think know what they're talking about, are recommending something that according to you is just a big waste of time? What is it that an anonymous poster on caucus99percent.com knows that they don't know? Or is it just a case of another group of sellouts who are in the till for Hill?

our election systems are I don't care what other effects the recounts have on the results of the election. As far as I'm concerned we could replace Donald with Hillary and I'd still view the results of the election the same: a terrible occurrence that signals four years (at least) of further decline, increased corporate power, and sociopathic foreign policy. I literally couldn't care any less whether Donald or Hillary is POTUS.

After the recounts reveal tampering and the states are ceded to HRC, Jill reveals herself to have been the real Hillary all along (and a genuinely liberal one!), and all the appearances we thought were Hillary were really only the stand-ins that some claimed. Jill becomes President but all her Green voters don't trust her, nor do the denizens of TOP, nor do any of the neolibs of the Democratic Party. Chuck Schumer convinces Greens to fund another recount, in anticipation that he will then reveal himself as the real Donald Trump. The Donald Trump of orange hair fame is proved to have been a Muppet in an elaborate skit.

Why do we care what Jill's motives are in this? It's happening. No one here will stop it. Chill the F out, folks. This isn't a personal betrayal.

He talked to the NYTimes as if he had won in a landslide and has the support of at least ¾ of the American people. When he sees headlines (I don't think he reads beyond the headlines) about recounts it will give him pause. And that's a good thing.

who just happens to have a crappy sense of strategy?

Could we all just take half a step back, and remember that Jill was nearly obsessed with the idea of finally getting the Greens past that magic 5%, so the Greens could be a well-funded party, and get on the debate stage next time? She got herself arrested during the last general for protesting her exclusion from the debates.

One of the very first detected large-scale computerized voter frauds was out in California, over a decade ago, wherein it was discovered that many votes were flipped from third parties to a major party candidate. This happened, and yet we need to find a Clinton / Trump reason for Jill to be contesting an election?

How about this to explain Dr. Stein's actions?

THIRD PARTIES KEEP GETTING FUCKED-OVER BY OUR RIGGED ELECTION SYSTEM. NOT JUST THIS TIME, BUT ALL THE TIME.

Maybe Jill Stein, like many of us, is tired of being screwed, and really, really, really wants to live in a DEMOCRATIC Republic again? Have we considered that possibility?

Or maybe even considered that she was trained as a Doctor? -And maybe wants to make this country healthy again?

I've been following this issue since '04, when Kerry lost Ohio and the "election" with a higher exit poll discrepancy than 4%. We tell other countries that they've had a fraudulent election with anything over 2% variance in the exit polls. And I must say, I've been bringing this up, every chance I get, ever since then, and I've been called names, had my sanity questioned, and been blown off, over and over and over. I put up a long rant about fraud in the Primary, back in bloody AUGUST http://caucus99percent.com/content/full-stop , to polite applause from very few eyeballs.

Maybe Jill has just reached the same point I was at months ago, and still am. This election system is WAY past the need for a tune-up. It needs to go under the hammer now. The election software needs to go into the trash compactor of history. The entirety of the computerized privatized opaque vote-stealing hardware needs to be run through the shredder and recycled. And we should replace it all with paper ballots and hand counts. The gold standard. The only way to be sure. Anyone standing staunchly in the way of that happening has a right to be as wrong as they want, but they are in fact helping the 1% to rob and control us.

This entire election should be a DO-OVER, without computerized equipment. And please don't tell me how impractical that is. REAL democratic countries do it, why can't we?

I know this is Thanksgiving weekend, but this is not a bloody football game. I don't care which awful "team" wins or loses. I want to find the assholes that keep changing the scoreboard to NOT reflect what happened in the game, and the media barkers that say it's the actual score, and the refs that agree with that. Until we can trust the people keeping score, there is no game. There is rigging and nothing else. There is only the illusion of a game.

Every one of you that says "Oh, look, I can accept the bogus score, because my team won!" is just contributing to the illusion.

-And our Lords and Masters thank you for your participation, BTW.