Posted on 11/12/2009 2:09:01 PM PST by American Dream 246
Democrat Bill Owens delivers his victory speech at his headquarters in Plattsburgh last week. Owens declared victory after Conservative nominee Doug Hoffman conceded the 23rd Congressional District race election night. Now recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference, and will be decided by a count of absentee ballots.
The Associated PressDemocrat Bill Owens delivers his victory speech at his headquarters in Plattsburgh last week. Owens declared victory after Conservative nominee Doug Hoffman conceded the 23rd Congressional District race election night. Now recanvassing shows the special election has narrowed to a 3,000-vote difference, and will be decided by a count of absentee ballots.» Updated county-by-county NY-23 vote totals (PDF)Washington -- Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.
As it turns out, neither was true.
But Hoffman’s concession -- based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted -- set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.
Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.
Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.
In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes -- 12,748 to 11,000.
The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.
Under a new law in New York that extended deadlines, military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2) will be counted. Standard absentee ballots had to be returned this past Monday.
Conklin said the state sent a letter to the House Clerk last week explaining that no winner had been determined in the 23rd District, and therefore the state had not certified the election. But the letter noted that Owens still led by about 3,000 votes, and that the special election was not contested -- two factors that legally allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to swear in Owens on Friday.
"We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals," Conklin said. "The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed."
Before Owens was sworn in Friday, Rep. John Garamendi, a Democrat who won a special election in California, was sworn in Thursday. The two gave Pelosi the votes she needed to reach a majority of 218 and pass the historic health care reform legislation in the House.
The bill passed 220-215 late Saturday with the support of only one Republican. The Republican, Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana, said he voted for the legislation only after seeing that Democrats had the 218 votes needed for passage.
Now Hoffman, who campaigned against the health care reform bill, is carefully watching as the 23rd District race tightens and he is left to wonder if he conceded too soon.
"I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night," Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. "I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference."
Ryan, while acknowledging that Hoffman’s chances of pulling off a come-from-behind victory are still remote, said the campaign is looking at its legal options.
"We’re basically watching and waiting," Ryan said. "We’ve been looking very closely at the recanvass. We’re going to see how this week shapes up, and then we’re going to determine what to do."
Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected -- and erroneous -- close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.
"That’s the thing that threw us off," Ryan said.
Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on "chaos" in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up and inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. Of 245 races in the county -- not including the congressional and court races -- 84 had incorrect totals reported election night.
In the congressional race, more votes were cast in Oswego County than any other in the 11-county district.
The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.
Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.
"Hoffman definitely gained votes where he didn’t have them," Eaton said.
Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum and the Army's 10th Mountain Division, distributed 2,299 absentee ballots for the special election. As of this week, 1,303 had been returned but not counted, Eaton said. He said the county will begin counting the absentee ballots earyl next week.
Conklin, of the state Board of Elections, said officials did not have updated absentee ballot totals from the other counties.
When asked about the tightening race, Owens spokesman Jon Boughtin released a statement without directly addressing the election. "Since being elected, Congressman Owens has remained focused on the issues at hand: working with local leaders to address the Champlain Bridge closure, meeting with commanders at Fort Drum and continuing the work to strengthen Upstate New York," the statement said.
Ryan said the absentee ballots are likely to favor Hoffman because most were likely mailed before Republican Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign three days before the election.
"For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race," Ryan said, adding that the campaign’s internal polls showed Hoffman would win with all three candidates.
"Given the majority of these ballots are from a three-way race, we think the ballots are going to break Doug’s way," Ryan said.
Ryan declined to say what percentage of the absentee vote the campaign believes Hoffman would need to win the race. Nevertheless, Hoffman’s campaign is optimistic.
"When people look back at this race, it was a remote possibility that Doug Hoffman would be a contender," Ryan said. "But miracles do happen.
Good information. I was inclined to believe it was some kind of vote. Of course, this begs the question, should Hoffman pull-off the miraculous, how would the Dem controlled House vote? Would they set aside partisanship and do the right thing, or would they do what was best for them alone?
The whole dynamics of the race changed in the last two weeks. Absentee ballots cast before that time most likely would not have gone to Hoffman. So the only chance for Doug would be if the majority of absentee ballots were cast in the last two weeks.
I don’t agree with the articulation of all his positions, however, the scorecard are just bullet points and his issues page seem to extrapolate in more detail.
I don’t agree with his seeming consent with Kenynesian economics (we need to spend in a recession, blah, blah, blah.) I mean what does this comment mean “What I would have supported is a bill that puts real money in the hands of Americans to spend, not federal bureaucrats…”
Too vague and it does what he says he opposes...it would allow bureaucrats to spend our money, because who decides how and how much to put in the ‘hands of Americans’ when you pass a bill - why bureaucrats do.
So this statement is in my view naive.
Ping to this post. It explains in detail what the mechanics would be for removing Owens and seating Hoffman.
“Of course, this begs the question, should Hoffman pull-off the miraculous, how would the Dem controlled House vote? Would they set aside partisanship and do the right thing, or would they do what was best for them alone?”
Better to be counting now while all Owen’s liars, I mean lawyers, are out of the way.
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20091028/NEWS02/310289943
http://www.doughoffmanforcongress.com/issues.html
http://watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090906/NEWS03/309069971
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/2373600/posts?page=1944#1944
Wasteful. The same euphemism Obama uses.
"On the campaign trail, Mr. Hoffman has decried unchecked spending, bloated governments and mounting deficits that create higher taxes. But he said he'd support a government bailout if there were an agency under the same set of circumstances today."
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20091028/NEWS02/310289943
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2385149/posts
“The election was close enough even on election night that the New York State Board of Elections was unable to present a “clear decision” in the race according to John Conklin, Communications Director for the department. He said that the Board sent a letter to the Clerk of the House of Representatives in Washington indicating that they could not yet determine a winner and could therefore not certify the election until after the recanvas and absentee ballot count. Those final numbers will not be available until at least mid-December.”
“There are currently over 10,000 uncounted absentee ballots, many of which were in the military where a strongly conservative bias exists. Given the narrow margin of Owens’ lead at this time, it’s entirely possible that this race could still swing for Hoffman.”
“There is no doubt that universal health care is a worthy objective.” —Doug Hoffman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/2373600/posts?page=1944#1944
He sounded like Ted Kennedy because he was like Ted Kennedy.
Interesting, and easily referenced via Google. With all the chatter over whether Obama is eligible for his office I'm surprised I hadn't come across mention of this before. So if, by some incredible long shot, those who think Obama isn't eligible are legally proven right, everything he's done up until then stands.
It’s about time to go Al Franken. Keep this count going until Hoffman wins.
CPONY was a straight backroom deal.
Wasteful. The same euphemism Obama uses.
++++++++++++++++
Right. I would hope that he would oppose earmarks completely. We’ll he’s got a few months to figure out the holes in his positions and statements. Mebbe we can help him out.
Also, did you say he garnered zero votes in the lead up from the GOP or from the CPONY?
Yep. You can imagine about the time when this doctrine was created. There were all kinds of election and post-election challenges and law suits going on in a very young country, especially along the frontier. So, the judiciary had to have a way of removing the unsavory characters, but not creating mass chaos when they did. So, they came up with this concept which eventually evolved into the de facto officer doctrine.
Zero votes from the NY selection committee composed of county chairs.
Did Hoffman cut you off in traffic?
CPONY was a straight backroom deal.
+++++++++++++++
Who would you like to have seen run in NY 23?
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