Tag: recount

http://minnesota.publicradio.o…

Just for the heck of it.

Today’s Electoral-Vote.com write-up says that Coleman’s lead has dwindled to just FIVE votes (out of some 2.9 million cast), with another 379 Coleman challenges to go today.

I don’t know how many more Franken challenges, absentee ballots, or other miscellany there are to go, though.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… says that the Lizard People ballot was rejected as an overvote (causing the person who hilariously made this ballot to probably become pissed at the canvassing board), but the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Frankenstin (sic) ballots were accepted as Franken votes.

Also, according to Coleman’s lawyer, “Lizard People” may in fact be the name of a real person.  Hmm, are the dinosaurs coming back???

Finally, it seems that the Minnesota Star-Tribune is seeking the person who marked the now infamous Lizard People ballot.

UPDATE: http://news.google.com/news/ur… says that Franken is up some 262 votes now.  But of course, let’s not forget that there are several thousand challenged ballots and another 1600 rejected absentees yet to be factored in.  Don’t hold your breath, and don’t become complacent either.

http://www.startribune.com/pol…

Earlier Friday, during an energy-related visit to Wright County, Coleman expressed second thoughts about a statement he made the morning after the Nov. 4 election.

Asked whether he would concede the race if the Canvassing Board certified Franken as the winner — as Coleman had suggested that Franken should do that post-election morning — the senator noted that at the time his 700-plus-vote lead over Franken was more substantial and that he hadn’t slept in 36 hours. Now, he said, “I don’t think I’d have made the same statement.”

Hilarious.

It’s Day 4 and apparently Coleman’s lead is down to 115 with 64% counted. There are over 1600 questioned ballots (pretty evenly distributed amongst Coleman and Franken), so that’s what it is going to come down to. Also, since the precincts counted have been redder than the actual results, we most likely have more than the 56 ballots that you could extrapolate from the data (it’s really hard to extrapolate because the of issue of questioned ballots).

Some of the questioned ballots seem to be frivolous and will almost certainly be decided quickly:

Coleman officials taped 51 ballots challenged by Franken officials on a wall and podium and labeled them “Franken’s Frivolous Follies.” Most the ballots were from Meeker County and marked with an X rather than a filled-in oval.

…

For their part, Franken officials showed a series of ballots challenged by the Coleman camp that showed a vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and either a vote for Franken or no one for senator. “Now, that’s silly,” Elias said.

Since the number of questioned ballots are nearly the same, and it looks the results might close around Coleman+50, it’s going to come down to who is making the less frivolous challenges.  

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

Important update: VA BOE repots a HUGE jump in Tom Perriello’s lead this afternoon from 30 votes to 834 votes. Goode has picked up a few votes here and there in Campbell and Pittsylvania County since, bringing Tom Perriello from +834 to his current total.

Race	Precincts In	Dem% – Rep%	Vote +-
VA-05	100%	Perriello 50.07% (158,523) – Goode 49.87% (157,894)	Perriello +629

I want to give yall a quick update on VA-05.

Firstly, get comfy.  We are winning this election, but I get the feeling this battle will take days, if not weeks to settle.

Secondly, progressives should be both eager and proud about working to win this race. Tom Perriello is a legitimate progressive phenomenon with a record of diplomatic work in conflict zones like Darfur and Afghanistan, and a natural ability to communicate to “real Virginians.” (not you commie types in NoVA!)

Perriello has made such an impression in VA-05 that he is now leading a 6-term Republican incumbent in an R+6 district by 30 votes with 100% reported.

Here’s whats happened in VA-05, and what we can expect in the coming days…

The battle for VA-05 (in yellow):

Winning the fifth district would turn a majority of Virginia’s Congressional seats blue.



Red=Republican, blue=Democratic, light blue=Dem pickup

Round 1: pre-Election Day

Barack Obama is a natural organizer, and that’s how he ran his campaign. Tom Perriello is the same way. Early on, the campaign invested in field operations, organizers, and GOTV apparatus. This was mostly in the southern, rural part of the district in places like Danville, Martinsville, and Bedford. Nobody had ever organized so heavily in southside. Tom saw that this would be necessary, and he set up an A+ field team and GOTV operation. State Senator and Gubernatorial Candidate Creigh Deeds said “I have never seen such local organization in my entire political life.”

Round 1, Tom.

Round 2 Goode Helps Us Close.

Tom’s momentum was helped in the last two weeks because of collosal screw-ups by Virgil Goode mis-using his office resources to promote a gay film. (Sultry full story here Goode was also running incredibly nasty attack ads distorting Tom’s skin color and making him look foreign, and calling Tom a “New York Lawer” (he never practiced law in New York.) Tom ran engaging positive ads like this one.

Election week polls showed the race to be within the margin of error.

Round 2, Tom.

Round 3 Election Day

Tom had a massive GOTV operation, as expected. Early in the night on Tuesday, MSNBC and other networks called the race for Goode. All of us knew that the networks were getting way ahead of themselves, and were under-estimating people’s support of Tom Perriello. Knowing what we did about the field operation, we called bullshit on the networks. Round 3, us.

Round 4: As the numbers came in

Later on in the evening, we saw Tom Perriello get closer and closer, the networks actually started “un-calling” the race for Goode. In fact, as the evening wore on, Perriello took a pretty substantial lead (well, at least compared to the 31-vote margin he currently holds). In fact, Tom Perriello actually had built up a lead of nearly 2,300 votes with 99.34% reporting. 305 of 307 precincts, and only about 800-1000 voters remained outstanding. Since, in the great state of Virginia, 800 voters can not cast 2300 votes, I called the race for Tom Perriello, drank a beer, a celebrated an un-imaginable upset in my Congressional race on a miraculous night that I will never forget as long as I live.

Round 4, youthful exuberance, O.R.E. (Obama Related Euphoria)

Round 5 Wednesday AM

Via a a commenter at CVille News, there was a huge shift towards Goode at 8AM due to VERIS machines in Danville City shifting 1,809 votes to Goode and subtracting 308 votes from Tom Perriello when they came back online at 8AM. I don’t expect foul play, as updated vote totals roughly mirror the 2004 results. But nevertheless, it was a shock to most of us who had gone to bed thinking Tom Perriello was the clear winner to wake up and see Virgil Goode ahead by several 100 votes. Richmond Times-Dispatch has more on the VERIS machine switch.

Round 5, Virgil and the bad guys.

Round 6 Wednesday day

What had looked like a certain win for Tom now looked like a near certain loss. However, all day yesterday Tom benefited from incoming results of district wide canvassing, and correction of human error, and his position continued to improve all day. He eventually took a small lead (initially he led by just 6 votes), and then his lead climbed to a staggering 31 votes, where it remains. Although we can expect that number to change with additional results coming in today.

How did the candidates spend their Wednesday?

Tom spent the day crossing the district to thank his volunteers and celebrate how far they had come together.

Virgil Goode holed up in his office in Rocky Mount with lawyers to figure out how to block the counting of provisional ballots.

Round 6, exasperation

Round 7 Upcoming days: The war over provisional ballots

The County will likely finish its canvass this week and we will have a rough count of where we stand without the provisional ballots. The state has until November 2th

This is where the story gets troubling:

Tom Perriello believes that we need to count ALL votes, including the provisional ballots. If that is done, he is confident that he will be elected.  

Virgil Goode on the other hand is challenging all provisional ballots, and his supporters are even saying “think like a bad guy.”

At around 1:45pm today, outside a conference room at the Albemarle County Office Extension on Fifth Street, a group of about five people strategized while the Albemarle County Registrar’s Office was on lunch break. Among them were Rachel Schoenewald, wife of the County GOP Chair Christian Schoenewald, and Clara Belle Wheeler. The group discussed how best to challenge provisional ballots that were cast by people on election day but who had received absentee ballots.

“Think like a bad guy,” said one woman. The phrase “integrity of the process” was batted around as a way of discussing the objection.

Round 8 The recount

Candidates in Virginia can request a recount if there is a difference of less than 1% (or, as an astute RK commenter points out, about 3,147 votes in this election.) We can be relatively certain that this will be the case.

A recount cannot be asked for until after the BOE certifies the election, which will occur Nov. 24. The request then needs to be filed within 10 days, or by Dec. 4.

Tom Perriello has said that he wants to ensure that we have a full “first count” before we have a recount. All signs are that Virgil Goode is lawyering up and ready to call for a recount as well.

Yesterday the Perriello campaign put out this statement:

“We are clearly seeing a very close election with vote totals from different counties changing rapidly, and Tom Perriello remains confident that when everyone’s vote is counted he will win this election and move ahead with his agenda for economic revival in the fifth district. Right now, our focus is on making sure every single vote is counted and every single voice is heard. The results need to be certified and there are provisional ballots that need to be considered. We are confident that people in the fifth district want change and that we are going to be successful in this election in the end.”

Tom Perriello has inspired people in the fifth district of Virginia like no other candidate ever has. His resume as a negotiator in conflict zones like Darfur and Afghanistan, his affable personality, his A+ staff, and his tireless campaigning have him neck-and-neck for the seat of deplorable xenophobe Virgil Goode. Goode is most notorious for his indecipherable rant against Muslims and immigration when Keith Ellison was elected in 2006, and under his watch this district has lost 1000s of jobs.

Tom gives me hope for my section of “real” Virginia, for the state of Virginia, and for my country. His service to those less fortunate has been the calling of his life, and he will make an incredible citizen-legislator.

We are winning! Spread the word.

And lets turn Virginia’s biggest district blue!

richard k. means, the best progressive election lawyer in the state of illinois, explains that the procedure for obtaining a recount is quite clear:

A discovery recount is only available in Illinois to a candidate who is within 95% of the winner.  Even then you get to recount only 25% of the precincts in every election jusridiction in the district for a pidling $10 per precinct.  In order to change the result, you have to go to court and prove that, had certain very specificly described errors not been made, that your candidate would have won.

means is one of the authors of the 2002 handbook on illinois election law published by the illinois institute for continuing legal education and wrote the chapter on recounts in the state.

laesch would clearly be within his right to call for a discovery recount (in the regular primary), since he’s within the margin allowed by law.  but, as the hill points out,

Split Illinois results could muddle Dems’ plans to take Hastert seat

By Aaron Blake

Posted: 02/06/08 07:12 PM [ET]

A close race in the Democratic contest to succeed former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) could hurt the party’s chances to win Hastert’s seat in a March special election to fill out the term, and in a general election in November.

Bill Foster led John Laesch by six points and declared victory in the Democratic primary for the special election to fill the seat for the remainder of Hastert’s term. He will now face Republican Jim Oberweis, who won his party’s special election.

But in the contest to be the Democratic nominee in November, Foster led Laesch by just 323 votes out of 75,000 cast.

Laesch, the Democratic nominee against Hastert in 2006, has yet to concede, but also has yet to ask for a recount.

If the result changed and Laesch became the Democratic nominee in the general primary, Democrats would have different candidates in the March special election to fill out Hastert’s term, and in the general election to elect a candidate to the 111th Congress.

In effect, Foster could potentially win the seat next month but not be his party’s nominee in November.

A challenge to the result could also cause Foster additional headaches during the short five-week period before the special election, which will be held March 8. The regular primary result will not be certified until March 7. This could make his chances of defeating Oberweis in a district that favored President Bush in the 2004 election even more difficult.

there are many misperceptions about recounts, and some wishful thinking, but there’s considerable pressure for the laesch campaign to go through an expensive and tedious recount — just because.  laesch himself hasn’t ruled out a recount request.  but the claim that they are waiting for the absentee ballots to come in before conceding is worrisome:

Outstanding Ballots:

Kendall County – 10 Outstanding Democratic Absentee Ballots

Kane County – 82 Outstanding Democratic Ballots, there are additional military and student ballots out but according to the Clerk’s office an extremely small number of those will be returned.

City of Aurora – There are a total of 100-130 absentee and provisional ballots. They would not indicate the exact number and these include Republican and Non-Partisan ballots.

Dekalb – 31 Total outstanding Democratic ballots.

Dupage is going to take a while.

even if laesch won every single one of the outstanding ballots, there aren’t enough that will be returned to overturn this election.  an early comment about “counting provisional ballots” was misinformed, as provisional ballots are counted in the initial returns, and removed after 48 hours if cause is provided.

the confusion we see coming out of the laesch camp seems to be based on progressive resentments about elections built up over this decade, the lack of professional campaign management and a misunderstanding of election law by laesch’s supporters.  i can’t clear all that up, but i can explain some of what laesch would face if he did decide he wanted a recount.

first of all, it’s important to acknowledge that recounts can change election outcomes.  one need only look at the gubernatorial race in washington state for that.  closer to home — and under the same laws that would apply if laesch were to request a recount — we find:

The Mayoral Election in Calument City was overturned 3 or 4 years ago for absentee ballot fraud.  I [rich means] reversed a Palatine Rural Fire District tax increase referendum about 5 or 6 years ago because the election judges gave voters the wrong ballot.  There are probably 4 election contests filed every year in Illinois and 20-25% win.

given the laesch campaign’s paucity of resources, i asked specifically, “how much can a campaign achieve for free or with relatively little in way of funds?”  means’ answer was pretty clear:

Nothing.  The half dozen of lawyers in Illinois experienced in this kind of case charge, like I do, about $250 per hour.  A congressional district discovery recount could cost upwards of  $25,000 and a full-blown election contest in court could cost ballpark $100,000 if hard fought on both sides.

btw (and please, folks, don’t interpret this as anymore than what it is), if i wanted to go forward with a recount, i would certainly be hiring means, given that he’s successfully overturned elections in the past, wrote the book (as it were) on the subject, and has been taking on the machine for years with much success.  i’m not advising anyone, i’m just sayin’.

the time frame for all this — a time frame made more dramatic, given the approach of the special election — is compact:

Within 5 days after the official proclamation of results, you have to file petitions in each election board and each county clerk in the district.  Investigation and other preparations should begin right after the polls close and the discovery recount petition must be filed within 5 days after the proclamation which will ocurr about February 26.

another election law attorney i consulted concurs with rich’s investigation advise.  remember,

In order to change the result, you have to go to court and prove that, had certain very specificly described errors not been made, that your candidate would have won.

ballot fraud — and this typically means absentee ballot fraud — is the primary justification used in recounts that lead to the successful reversal of an election result.  and ballot fraud is the tool of the local party establishment, not the “outsider” candidate or campaign.  much has been made about how laesch was the preferred candidate of the local political establishment (which i initially rejected because i understood the tensions between a local democratic official and laesch — but my extrapolation turned out to be wrong).  it would have been laesch, not foster, who would have had the opportunity to commit ballot fraud — and i don’t think anyone would argue that laesch or his campaign would have done so.  the point is that there is little that laesch could hope to achieve by a recount, given his status as the local party establishment candidate.

not to mention how expensive it would be.  given the import of any such recount and followup procedures, one could expect foster to aggressively defend his victory in the general primary.  means tells us that “Both the winner and the petitioning loser and credentialled press” can oversee recount procedures.  the process is completely transparent.  the magic, as it were, had to take place before a recount was requested.

clout street, the chicago tribune’s local politics blog, notes that “Foster has declared victory, but Laesch has not yet conceded.”  contrast that with the very similar situation tuesday night where the local democratic establishment candidate tom allen conceded the race to outsider candidate anita alvarez before even 70% of the ballots were counted.  less than 1% of the vote separated those two, as well.  but allen knew, because he had the advice of professional management, that nothing would change.  so allen looks gracious by conceding before any media outlet was ready to call the race.  i don’t think anyone would suggest that laesch looks gracious here:

Democrat to wait for all ballots to be counted in special race to succeed Hastert

Posted by James Kimberly at 12:00 p.m.

Democrat John Laesch said Friday that he won’t concede the Democratic primary election in the 14th Congressional District until all provisional and absentee ballots are counted.

the reality is that modern media effects people’s perceptions of elections.  in this case, people think that after the polls are closed, the elections are over.  laesch is technically correct when he notes that all the votes have not been counted (even though outstanding votes could not alter the outcome).  but his decision to wait does look like sour grapes.  it only serves to divide local democrats.  after all that work that laesch and his supporters put into building up the party, it’s curious that he would now take steps to divide it.  the ball is, most definitely, in john laesch’s court…