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I just received this e-mail: Dear Supporter, Election night, after the ten counties in my district had reported their votes, I led Bob Etheridge by 2,100 votes. (That number is crucial because under North Carolina law Congressman Etheridge is not entitled to an ‘automatic recount’ if he trails by more than 1% – or 1,888 votes.) Then, yesterday afternoon – unexpectedly – the vote totals changed. The State Board of Elections reported my lead had dropped to 1,600 votes. Two hours later Bob Etheridge announced he intended to call for a recount. As a result, last night my campaign began...

Raleigh, N.C. — Seven-term Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge on Wednesday said he will call for a recount in his re-election bid, where he trails Republican challenger Renee Ellmers by about 1,600 votes. Ellmers claimed victory late Tuesday, and The Associated Press also declared her the winner in the tight Second District race.

You have to be kidding me. No matter how many times you shake your head or rub your eyes, Minnesota voters on Tuesday once again demonstrated their almost Shakespearean flair for the dramatic, delivering another dead-heat race just two years after a lengthy statewide U.S. Senate recount tested the nerves of local elections officials and the patience of the nation. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, DFLer Mark Dayton unofficially led Republican Tom Emmer by 0.4 percent, close enough to trigger a statewide recount in the governor's race. Fresh from storming their way to control of the state Legislature...

In a grimly familiar scene for Minnesota politics, the governor’s race between apparent winner Mark Dayton and Republican challenger Tom Emmer is headed to a recount. With 100 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, Dayton leads Emmer by 8,854 votes. This number requires a mandatory recount under state law as it is within one-half of one percentage point.

With only a half of a percentage point separating DFL candidate Mark Dayton and Republican candidate Tom Emmer, Minnesota Republican leaders say they will pursue the recount until every single vote is counted. "We believe that we owe it not just to the Republican party and Tom Emmer, we owe it to the state to make sure this is done correctly," State Chair Tony Sutton told reporters Wednesday. "What I'd like to make sure is that the votes are counted and that everything is done correctly to make sure people aren't being disenfranchised." Sutton says the party wants assurances that...

Just two days before the statute of limitations ran out, on the very day that the nation was at the polls for midterm elections, the Nobles County attorney's office filed charges against two people for voting in the 2008 election while ineligible. Monica Duarte Duchene, 36, and Ryan Scott Marsh, 30, both of Worthington, were charged in Nobles County District Court of voting at a time when they were ineligible due to a prior felony conviction which had not been discharged. Duchene was convicted in December 2007 of third-degree arson and sentenced in February 2008 to five years of probation,...

The Minnesota governor's race is so close it has come to this: another recount appears almost certain. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, DFLer Mark Dayton leads Republican Tom Emmer by less than one half of 1 percent -- 43.67% to 43.24%. For any race where the margin is less than one half of 1 percent, there is an automatic recount, as happened two years ago in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race. "It looks like it's recount part II: And this time it's personal," said state Republican Party Chair Tony Sutton.

Football coaches want to win in the air or on the ground. Many have almost open disdain for the kicker. But when the game comes down to the wire, he often is the the difference between an amazing victory or an agonizing defeat. Political campaigns have their own air (TV and radio ads) and ground (get-out-the-vote and other efforts) strategies. The vast majority of races will have clear winners. But in those instances where a few dozen or few hundred votes separate the contenders, the fight will move to the courtroom.

Democratic and Republican officials in Washington say they have elaborate plans in place involving training sessions for recount volunteers, Washington lawyers who specialize in recount efforts and detailed plans about how to mobilize legal and public relations resources if a recount is necessary. Rob Jesmer, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, admitted, “there’s something else that keeps me up at night beyond tight poll numbers. Recounts.” In the e-mail, Mr. Jesmer urges supporters to donate money so the party can be ready to field lawyers on Nov. 3 in places where recounts might be necessary. “We cannot...

If history is any guide, there will be several House races and probably a couple of Senate races that end up so close after the votes are counted that a recount will be mandated. There will also be the usual charges of fraud and vote stealing by both sides, which will put pressure on state election officials to investigate these claims. Will it be worse this time around? With so much at stake this year, and with the lessons and emotions of Minnesota 2008 and Florida 2000 lingering, recounts will almost certainly trigger an all-out assault from Washington-based election stars...

08/25/2010 12:43 CHINA Chinese police "remove" ballots and block vote count In a village near Beijing the head of the Communist Party wins local elections by a few votes, but the police prevent the election commission from conducting a full count. Protests explode and there with several arrests. Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - At least 13 residents (including three members of the electoral college of control) have been arrested and several others sought in the wake of protests that erupted in late July over elections in the village of Raolefu, a rural area in the suburbs of Beijing. On July...

The canvassing process in Michigan’s 1st district, where there is a recount needed to sort out the winner of Tuesday’s Republican primary, may start moving faster. After the initial unofficial vote count, surgeon Dan Benishek was just one vote ahead of state Sen. Jason Allen in the northern Michigan district currently represented by retiring Rep. Bart Stupak (D). The count: 27,091 to 27,090. The winner will face state Rep. Gary McDowell (D) in what is expected to be a very competitive race in November. Here’s what happens next. Michigan law gives county election boards 14 days to certify results —...

Three days after the primary election in the 6th congressional district, Highlands Mayor Anna Little has held on to a razor thin lead over rival Diane Gooch and the race appears headed towards a recount. As of this evening, Gooch and Little were separated by 80 votes -- 6,794 for Little and 6,714 for Gooch. There are at most 25 Republican provisional ballots left in Monmouth County, where they are expected to be counted Monday, according to Little campaign manager Leigh-Ann Bellew. Provisional ballots in Middlesex County were counted today, giving four additional votes to Little and two to Gooch.

BAGHDAD - U.S. soldiers from the 571st Military Police Company and the Joint Area Support Group-Central security directorate have been working round the clock since May 2 on request from the Iraqi government to augment the security surrounding the partial recount of the Baghdad parliamentary election ballots. Several weeks ago, an Iraqi review panel decided to unseal the roughly 11,300 ballot boxes and recount more than two million ballots after a complaint from Maliki's bloc alleged fraud in the initial tally of ballots in Baghdad, which holds more than a fifth of the seats in parliament. Officials had expected the...

A recount of annulled votes in Romania's presidential election failed to overturn the incumbent Traian Basescu's victory, the country's central election bureau said on Sunday. Basescu won the December 6 runoff by around 70,000 votes against leftist challenger Mircea Goreana, who contested the result at the Constitutional Court saying the election was marred by fraud. The court asked for a recount of more than 138,000 annulled votes by Monday. The bureau has so far recounted over 137,000 votes. It found 2,137 of those were valid and 1,169 were in favour of Basescu, while 968 were cast for Goreana.

Dear Friends, Today, Tuesday, November 24, 2009, it is with a heavy heart that we declare this election over. We will formally end this election and not ask for a recount. This was a difficult choice to make because so many people have put their faith, hope and aspirations into our campaign. Yes, there seem to have been many vote counting problems, missed vote counts and, as was recently reported by the Gouvernour Times, software problems in the computerized voting machines. Despite these incidents, I do not believe the voters of NY-23, or New Yorkers in general, would be well-served...

EVEN the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery. The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters. If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that's 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes. Asks Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected -- a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?"

(Washington, D.C. - 10/2/09) In a very short statement, an un-named community organizing organization insists it has located ballot boxes in Copenhagen that held a large amount of votes for the City of Chicago and will formally protest the "flawed" voting that has taken place. "We detest the flawed voting that has taken place in Copenhagen and have proof not all votes were counted, and millions of people in Chicago have been disenfranshised by this obvious injustice. We plan on presenting this proof to the IOC, in conjuction with our SEIU brothers and sisters, and volunteer to personally oversee the...

After a banner bounce-back year for Democrats in 2006, many believed the 2008 Senate race was theirs to lose. In 2002, when Coleman was elected with Bush's blessing, 70 percent of Minnesotans approved of the president's performance. By 2008, 70 percent disapproved. A hurricane had flooded New Orleans in 2005, and two years later at the other end of the Mississippi River, an interstate bridge in Minneapolis had collapsed into those waters. Polls showed the state of Minnesota, like the rest of the country, wanted change. The campaign got personal early. Already being knocked around for his jokes and writings,...

Politics: The former Stuart Smalley becomes the 60th Democrat in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the community organizers at Acorn and the little-known Secretary of State Project. Is the system being rigged? Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded defeat in the mother of all recounts in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race after the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected his lawsuit. Arguably, his seat may have been lost the day in 2006 when Democrat Mark Ritchie defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer to become Minnesota secretary of state. It was Ritchie who orchestrated the recount that gave Democratic challenger Franken a lead some...