Posted on 11/12/2009 4:25:08 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
GOUVERNEUR, NY - Despite the fact that Bill Owens has already been sworn-in and has voted on crucial legislation in the House of Representatives, he may not have actually won the NY-23 Congressional Special Election.
Several errors were made during the initial vote counts. Over 2,000 votes for contender Doug Hoffman were not counted in the preliminary results, narrowing the current vote gap to less than 3,000 votes between Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Doug Hoffman.
The errors were discovered during the standard vote recanvas that has been underway since November 4th. The largest error occurred in Oswego County where the vote recanvas found a discrepancy of more than 1,200 votes in Doug Hoffman's favor. Another error, in Jefferson County contributed an additional 700 votes in Hoffman's favor during the recount.
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.
Nancy Pelosi was only able to legally swear-in Bill Owens because Doug Hoffman had conceded the election, indicating that he did not contest the initial, and now shown erroneous, results, something he may not have done if he had been aware of how close the election was.
Mr. Hoffman told the Gouverneur Times that he felt at the time that he "was being a good sport" in doing so. With 93% of the polls in and counted and a margin of over 5,000 votes in favor of Owens, he felt he had lost the election. He now says that "while hindsight is 20/20, if I had known it was that close, I probably would have waited."
Bill Owens was sworn in 2 days later and proceeded to vote in favor of Pelosi's health care bill the following day. While Mr. Hoffman feels that deliberately contesting the results of the election to prevent Owens' deciding vote in the Health Care bill would "not have been very sportsmanlike," and that he, personally, would not like to see a politician manipulate events in that manner, he also indicated that the good of the American people and the citizens of the 23rd district would have weighed in on that decision as well.
As it stands now, Bill Owens may be in Washington and voting the Pelosi Party line but when the vote is certified he may be ousted. The state Board of Elections indicated that "...all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed." Concession speech or not, if the voters in the 23rd District elected Doug Hoffman and not Bill Owens, then Hoffman will be the Representative.
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.
Sources indicate that the Democrats would not have had the votes to pass the Health bill if Owens had not been sworn-in and pledged his support for it. Several other Representatives have indicated that they would not have cast their votes in favor of the bill if they were not certain that it had the votes to win.
“There are currently over 10,000 uncounted absentee ballots, many of which were in the military where a strongly conservative BIAS exists.” (The capital letters are mine).
Bias? Oh, I see. When a member of the military favors a conservative over a moonbat democrat, it’s a bias.
You would never see the lame-stream media using the word “bias” to describe blacks overwhelmingly supporting democrats. Sheesh.
You Said “Also jawdroppingly amazing is that citizens and/or cities, states and municipalities are not DEMANDING proof of identity for anyone who votes anywhere in this nation. As long as there is no proof of ID, there is phenomenal opportunity for fraudulent votes.”
Indiana passed a law requiring you to show ID at the polls, It was challenged and upheld by the USSC. So some state appellate judge in Indiana decided decided that the voter ID law was unconstitutional and overrode the USSC.
Don’t ask me how, I can’t figure it out.
Exactly right, CounterCounterCulture.
Democrats cannot be trusted to run a democracy.
Exactly right, CounterCounterCulture.
Sorry if you received this ping two or three times... I'm getting lots of "Proxy Errors" on FR lately.
I live in Minneeedope-A- they will find votes in car trunks
-votes that have been misplaced- and votes that were not turned in!!
check how AL franken got in - American’s are sheeple
I am fed up of how the left steal elections.
In Fl they only wanted to count the 3 heavily Dem counties, my county which is very republican was not recounted.
They kept trying to count and count until they thought they would win.
The usual Dem voter is either thick or just ignorant as they seem unable to accept or understand how they are being treated like dumb idiots by their party ...
Even the KOs kiddies are like sheep , they wait until the talking points come out and then repeat it.
They recount, they use fraud, ACORN, SEIU, they use tactics like black panthers standing outside, imagine if white men were doing this.
Then they now do this.
of course do not forget how they try and stop military votes from being counted because the military goes for us all the time ...
You betcha this is important and it's possible Cao will also flip. This could make the difference.
Fat chance of success. If we prove that Obama is indeed a foreigner, can we undo everything he has signed? Like do we get our TARP and auto bailout money back? I think not.
Even if the votes swing to Hoffman, things will not be reversed. Remember, we are under communist corruption control.
also they vote more than once, go tom places to live for a week and vote there like in the last election with these kids from NY going to another state.
“Most of those absentee ballots would have been cast before Scuzzyfavors dropped out”
Yep, that might very well be the problem. The whole dynamics of the race changed in the last two weeks.
It doesn’t say how many votes went toward Owens because of the error...doesn’t make sense that the “error” only benefits Hoffman, unless someone was trying to get away with something...
I read elsewhere that only 5400 of the 10,000 have been returned. However, IIRC the deadline to return an absentee ballot and have it count is still five days away.
I’ll be thrilled if Owens has to step down, but realistically it doesnt look likely. What looks far more likely is that he will have a single year in Congress.
That and third party voters gave us Franken.
The stinking criminal democreeps helped by fatties and DIABLOs Dede and Newt.
Hey Newt - you are a stinking liar.
The best part if this election is overturned will be rubbing it in all of the pundits faces how this loss was such a blow for Palin and conservatives. Will they then admit what a HUGE win it was? No, they’ll just pretend it never happened.
Doug Hoffman - you are a decent and honest man but when dealing with Democrat scum - you cannot be a “good sport.”
The same goes for RINO scum like Newt and Dede.
Oh, no ...
What a pedicament for Nancy Pelosi...
What does one wear to a unswearing in ???
:)
Plus, Cao the Republican supposedly only voted for it when it was clear that the Donks had the votes to win.
Pelosi swore Garamendi in before the results were certified in California as well so neither really should have been sworn in (can you imagine Gingrich trying to do that in 1996?). If they had had to wait until the results were certified, and if Cao had voted with the R’s, it would have been 216 to 217. And I’m willing to bet with a vote that close, one or more of the “yes’s” would have turned to a “no.”
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