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.
Don't see how. I don't live in the NY 23rd. But then, neither does he.
I ordinarily would not support a 3rd Party move, but this was a special case, where the GOP “leadership” in NY did us dirty.
This had to happen!
The victory was in pushing out Skuzzy.
Anyone with ANY political wisdom knows that Hoffman did an outstanding job, and that Skuzzy would not have won, anyway, even if Hoffman had not entered the race.
Thank you for the explanation. Tricky is a good word for it. I wonder if the Democrats would have capitulated as easily if the Illinois seat had gone to a Republican.
I liked Maroun. But it was later pointed out to me that he violated his pledge to support the nominee late in the race.
So that the anti-2nd Amendment Owens was seated instead? Preserve us from any more such Pyrrhic victories.
From the AP about 15 minutes ago...
Winning margin in NY House 23 race tightens
ALBANY, N.Y. – The special election last week for the 23rd Congressional District seat in New York may not be over after all.
Though Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman conceded and Democrat Bill Owens was sworn into Congress last week, the routine recanvassing of votes shows Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes, with about 5,800 absentee ballots received so far that have yet to be counted. The final outcome rests on uncounted absentee ballots, and more than 10,000 were sent out.
The county Boards of Election are still recanvassing votes and it could be the end of November before a final count is certified. If the count overturns the election, Owens could be removed from office. ...”
More at link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_re_us/us_ny_special_election
Zero votes from the NY selection committee composed of county chairs.
++++++++++++++++
Are you part of the CPONY?
Did the state leaders just insert him then, in a power play over the county chairs?
In your view, why did they insert him?
Now that we are where we are, should we oppose him, because we don’t like every last one of his articulations, or should we press him to maintain and re-formulate more conservative articulations/positions?
Are you part of the CPONY?
+++++++++++++
Oops, your profile says you’re CA...:)
And that is exactly what ACORN and Saul Alinsky wanted.
Lose the trust of the real people in elections and cede it to the crooks.
I SAY OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!
The county Boards of Election are still recanvassing votes and it could be the end of November before a final count is certified. If the count overturns the election, Owens could be removed from office. ...”
+++++++++++
This report says:
“Those final numbers will not be available until at least mid-December.”
Thanks for explaining that. I was under the (false) impression that when you concede it's over no matter what.
Sorry - *This* report says:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2385149/posts
“Those final numbers will not be available until at least mid-December.”
I agree. It is unlikely that Hoffman will receive that number of votes.
The CP asked Maroun, he refused. Hoffman heard and went to the CP asking for the slot Maroun turned down.
Kansas58: The victory was in pushing out Skuzzy.
Mojave: So that the anti-2nd Amendment Owens was seated instead? Preserve us from any more such Pyrrhic victories.
+++++++++++++++++
Mojave - please instruct us how we should deal with RINOs. You seemed to be charged up about CINOs, but what about RINOs?
Honestly.
Mojave - please instruct us how we should deal with RINOs.
Honestly.
++++++++++++++++++++
Are you saying Hoffman is basically dishonest? Or that he’s not as conservative as you’d like?
I think Hoffman, such as he came to be the representative of the CPONY, made a decent to good effort and here we are still discussing whether he can win that seat. If he wins, or if he runs again, I think we can encourage him to solidify his conservative positions and articulations.
I disagree with you that jettisoning Scuzzy was a ‘Pyrrhic’ victory.
I think it is a clear signal to the GOP establishment not to run RINO or worse than RINO candidates and expect Conservatives to fall in line.
Those days are OVER.
It is entirely Scuzzy and her supporters doing. The Rs need to learn this lesson the hard way. If they nominate Mitt, McCain or Huck in 2012 they will get a spankin the likes of which they will never recover from.
I have to agree with you. I'm the last guy to support a 3rd party candidate - I think it's pure suicide, and if someone wants to send a message, they should use AT&T. But, the NY Republican establishment screwed the pooch here, leaving people who were legitimate Republicans, to say nothing of Conservatives, no choice but to support Hoffman.
Hoffman was a far less than perfect candidate who was hampered by the fact that he didn't even live in the district. But, he was FAR better than Scuzzyfofa, who - after withdrawing from the race - has shown her true colors. She's no more a Republican, even moderate Republican, than I am King of England.
I don't know if Scuzzy would have won without Hoffman in the race, but even if she would have, it would have been bad for Republicans. She would have given cover to Dems who were looking for so-called bi-partisan support.
Why did Hoffman concede? Why not make the rat wait it out instead of giving nazi nancy the free vote?
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