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Less than a day after Tuesday's election for the 23rd Congressional District, the fallout is smoldering hot. Angry with the way Republicans handled their candidate selection, a Franklin County legislator says he will strongly consider running for Congress or State Assembly next year. "The supporters of Dede should be ashamed of themselves," Paul Maroun, a Franklin County legislator from Tupper Lake, said in reference to Republican candidate Dierdre "Dede" Scozzafava. THE CHOICE Maroun was one of nine people Republicans were considering as a candidate when the race was set last summer. The seat opened up after President Barack Obama named...

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...

A recanvassing of votes cast in the highly contested NY-23 race shows that the 5,335-vote lead once enjoyed by Rep.-for-now Bill Owens, the Democrat, has narrowed to about 3,000 with another 10,000 absentee ballot uncounted. Owens, who was sworn in last week, was one of 220 Dems to vote give the majority a narrow victory on health care reform. UPDATE: Josh Kraushaar, who has been following this closely, says Conservative Party boss Mike Long thinks Owens is going to win at the end of the day -- because only about 5,400 absentees have been returned. The Syracuse Post-Standard: But Hoffman’s...

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...

There's something strange going on up in New York's 23rd congressional district, as noted by the TCOT guys. Unless Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman got exactly zero votes in the town of Fenner (Owens got 157, Scozzafava got 248), and at one polling place in the town of Hamilton (Owens got 75, Scozzafava got 79), and at one polling place in the town of Sullivan (Owens got 173, Scozzafava got 251), the initial vote totals look rather hinky.

That headline may be premature, but it was even MORE premature to swear in Owens last Friday before all the votes were counted!Democrats didn't waste any time swearing in Bill Owens to take a seat in Congress representing the 23rd Congressional District of New York. While the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman had conceded the race on election night when it looked like he was down by over 5,000 votes, all the ballots had yet to be counted and a string of reporting errors underreported Hoffman's totals by thousands of votes. The official vote count is now so close that the...

Election Night Last Tuesday, with 93% of the vote counted Doug Hoffman was down 5,335 votes with and he had barely won his stronghold in conservative Oswego County. Hoffman did the right thing and conceded the special election in the NY 23rd Congressional district. Democrat Bill Owens was seated in Congress (based on the Hoffman concession) even though NY State had yet to certify the election. Among his first acts was to vote for the Obamacare bill with the government option even though he promised that he would vote against any bill with a government option. The Central New York...

On election night, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman conceded defeat to Democratic candidate Bill Owens after dramatically under-performing in key counties and deciding that he couldn’t overcome the gap. Today, the campaign is “looking very closely” at a recanvass of the district that has revealed, as recanvasses often do, screw-ups in the initial count. What was a 5,335-vote margin for Owens on election night is now a 3,026-vote margin, due largely to initial under-reporting of Hoffman votes in Oswego County and Jefferson County. According to Mark Weiner’s report, the Hoffman campaign is leaving open the option of legal challenges if...

Word in from NY 23 that Conservative Doug Hoffman now trails by just 3000 votes as the official  tabulation process continues. "The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed."  Among the absentee ballots that remain uncounted are "military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2)..." But 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." By what right does...

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.

Conservative Doug Hoffman now trails by 3,000 votes. Hoffman campaign says they may not have conceded so quickly had they known about counting errors.

Just when you thought you wouldn't have to spell "Dede Scozzafava" anymore, the Republican nominee in that upstate New York special election is back -- lashing out at Sarah Palin and others who worked against her bid. In a revealing interview with The Washington Post, Scozzafava, a member of the New York State Assembly who lost her leadership post in the wake of her election loss, talks about what it's like to see her name turned into a verb (Gov. Charlie Crist, R-Fla., is the next candidate in danger of getting "Scozzafaved.")

Looking for a scapegoat for her poor showing in New York’s 23rd Congressional race, Dede Scozzafava has chosen every liberals favorite, Sarah Palin. Scozzafava in an interview slammed Sarah Palin for “attacking” her, when in reality Palin only endorsed her opponent Doug Hoffman. But then again to liberals if you don’t support them you’re attacking them. I love the way the media is describing Dede Scozzafava even now; they say she’s a “moderate” Republican. CNN describes her as the “face of moderate republicanism”; refusing to call Scozzafava what she is, a liberal. Sarah Palin simply chose principle over party; Dede...

"If the Republican Party follows the course of Palin and Beck and Company it's doomed."So said Sam Donaldson on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. His evidence? Democrat Bill Owens victory Tuesday in the 23rd Congressional district of New York. Readers are strongly advised to stow all fluids, combustibles, and sharp objects for the ignorance on display here might produce uncontrollable fits of anger (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript): (VIDEO AT LINK) Let me tell you that the wake-up call for the Republicans was the New York's 23rd. Now just as Rush Limbaugh couldn't prevent the Party from nominating...

North country Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava has resigned from her leadership position in the state Assembly. In a prepared statement, Republican Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said he accepted her resignation as Minority Leader Pro Tempore. Just before last week's election, Scozzafava dropped out of the Congressional race and backed the Democrat, Bill Owens, who went on to win. Scozzafava met Monday to discuss her actions. Many have argued that Scozzafava's last-minute endorsement of Owens gave him the Congressional win. “Today, I had a thorough and frank discussion with Assemblywoman Scozzafava. As a result, Dede has tendered, and I accepted, her...

Obama said the main message he took from last week’s election results – with Republicans winning gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia – was that Americans are “nervous, and they’re worried and they’re anxious.” “I don't think there's any denying the fact that people are worried out there,” he said in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper today. Obama said Democrat Bill Owens victory in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, the one bright spot for the president’s party last Tuesday, “sent an important signal.”

Reacting to media reports that Nancy Pelosi “secretly” dispatched a top lieutenant to meet with Dede Scozzafava before the Assemblywoman’s shocking endorsement of Bill Owens, Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long called for a Federal Election Commission investigation of any “illicit inducements” that may have been offered in exchange for Scozzafava’s support. “It a matter of public record that the Scozzafava family company is in financial difficulty. All her public statements about her withdraw mentioned money problems. Nancy Pelosi is desperate to win this seat,” Long said, adding: “Can it be a mere coincidence that Dede demand a face-to-face meeting, then...

Yesterday, we showed you this report by The Washington Independent that a whopping 95 percent of Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman's cash came from outside the district. Today, the Independent crunched some more numbers and found that Democrat Bill Owens also got most of his cash from outside the district -- 86 percent of it. Only $121,596 of Owens' total (as of Oct. 15) $843,441 came from the district. The biggest donor, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, contributed about 11 percent. By contrast, $12,360 of the $265,341 Hoffman raised by that same date came from inside the district. His biggest donor...

Despite the shine of the national media spotlight, fewer north country residents voted in the 23rd Congressional District race this year than voted in either of the district's two previous contested campaigns.About 48,074, or 34 percent of the 141,019 registered voters in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties cast their ballots for the congressional seat on Election Day. The turnout is lower than the 63 percent of voters that cast ballots in 2008 and 43 percent in 2006. Turnout was higher last year, in part, because of the presidential election. In 2006, there was a gubernatorial race.“Those percentages are certainly...

Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee who issued an election eve endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens in the Nov. 3 New York special election, will meet with Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb Monday to discuss whether she will be stripped of her Assembly leadership position. POLITICO has learned that Kolb will announce after the face-to-face meeting whether Scozzafava, the Minority Leader Pro Tempore, will remain as the GOP floor leader. “Fundamentally my members are very disappointed with her endorsement of Bill Owens and aiding him in helping achieve the Nancy Pelosi health care plan in Washington,” Kolb said. Scozzafava’s last-minute endorsement,...