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.
If the Republican is ahead - its a recount, if the Dem is ahead - no recount.....if the Dem loses after the recount - do ANOTHER recount....
That's the law (as I understand it by observation!)
Can someone send that to Glenn please?
...and keep doing recounts until social justice is achieved and the Democrat emerges victorious! Hallelujah!
Barf....
Therein lies the issue that most young law school students often struggle - there's frequently a great divide between the way the law should work, and how it does work.
And, it's not the fact that he conceded, which is legally irrelevant, it's the fact that he didn't contest the election, which is what allowed Pelosi to seat Owens, so quickly, in the first place.
Special elections can be problematic for this very reason. In a normal election, there time - usually a couple months - between the election, and the expiration of the incumbent's term. This allows for all manner of election contests to play themselves out. And if they aren't, then you can see events transpire similar to what happened in MN this year. The Senate refused to seat Franken because Coleman formally challenged the election.
Remember, Democrats don’t have to play by the rules.
This is, without a doubt, most accurate. Because of the looming vote on Pelosicare, the wise thing to do would have been to contest the election immediately, which would have precluded Pelosi from seating Owens.
But, election contests are VERY expensive, and Federal Campaign laws would have precluded the GOP from helping - in any way - Hoffman, because Hoffman ran as an independent. It was a comedy of errors and circumstances that led to Owens installation.
Absolutely on point. It seems that the Democrats figured out long ago that in these 50-50 elections you have to develop all sorts of tactics to push the election in your direction - they are always chattering about some kind of "fairness" doctrine which simply means its only fair when they win!
Hoffman needs something like a 4 to 1 ratio or better in the absentee vote count in order to win. That will be hard to accomplish, imo.
Spoiler? To Who? Scozzafaza? Ha!
I think, as the GOP nominee, Hoffman would have won easily.
Party identification DOES matter!
As an “indy” Hoffman needed a 3-way race.
Which FReepers were those??? I’ve seen very strong support here for Hoffman.
I am going to agree with your post 50, but add that the Hoffman campaign spokesman said “For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race,”
That's perfectly fitting considering the Clown-in-Chief that leads it.
IF Owens if NOT declared the winner and Hoffman is what you’ve stated makes no sense. The election has NOT been certified for Owens.
I wish I was wrong, but I'm not. The doctrine has been upheld in a number of cases going back to the late nineteen hundreds. Even when someone obtains their office through fraud or other impropriety, whatever they do while in office still has the same force of law if they were "legitimate". Their actions are not undone by their removal. Any laws signed or voted on would have to be repealed through additional legislation.
However, you seem a bit ignorant on the subject of politics, or a troll trying to cause trouble.
YOU are incompetent or just a jerk.
Hoffman did a FANTASTIC job, for a 3rd Party candidate.
IF Hoffman had been the GOP nominee, Hoffman would have cleaned the floor with Owens.
My guess is that you know this fact, full well, but you want to cause trouble and will not admit that fact.
So, I prefer to see you as devious, rather than stupid.
“based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted”
SNAFU. Is that what they’re calling election fraud these days?
I wonder if they know the real original meaning of the word snafu? It pretty much encapsulates vote counting in a lot of close elections where the Dems always seem to come out on top.
I would GUESS that the Certification is to be done by a Democrat, right?
Then.....it doesn't matter what the final count is.......the Democrat (Owens) is in.
Since when does the law have to make sense?
Owens was seated - and Pelosi, as the article explains, was able to seat him because of the initial vote tally margin plus the fact that the election wasn't contested by Hoffman. That can't be undone by the judiciary, even under the principle of judicial review established by Marbury v. Madison.
A challenge by a House member on the House floor is now the only way to remove Owens from office. And, given the numbers in the House plus the fact that Pelosi is speaker, makes such a challenge unlikely to prevail. I don't make the law, but I do understand it, sorry.
Thank stinking RINO/DIABLOs like Newt, Dede and the NY-23 RINO GOP party hacks in the district.
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