Down to Virginia

[mmcirvin]

Tester wins in Montana. Majority party control of the Senate now rests on the recount in Virginia, which will not happen for weeks.

Comments

[ammenemes3.livejournal.com]

I think it is going to go to the Democrats, honestly.

I mean, there was a lot of tooth and nail fighting over 2000 when it really did seem that the American Public was pretty well evenly divided.

Splitting hairs over votes in this race, however? Well it seems more like counting raindrops in a tsunami if you ask me.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think so too. Note also that Webb actually declared victory while he was ahead (getting the idea in people's minds--Bush more or less did that too), and he's been ahead in the published numbers ever since.

George Allen is a repellent creep, and I don't think he'll just get the message and bow out without a fight. Some blog commenters, though, have pointed out that the longer this drags on, the more unsavory things we're likely to hear about voter intimidation during his campaign, and his star will likely fall further.

A few months ago he was still being spoken of as presidential timber.

[jwgh]

The thing I recall from the last election was that, because old equipment tends to be used in poorer areas, which in turn tends to be more likely to vote Democratic, recounting was more likely to turn up more votes there, so recounting tended to turn up more new Democratic votes than Republican.

A lot of voting machines have been replaced by electronic voting machines since then, but since those machines typically don't have a paper backup I'm not sure how recounting would work, or if there's any way it could result in different numbers from the original ones. There's an article about this problem here: http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/061108evotingbackup/

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...just to be clear, I don't think you have to be a repellent creep in order to challenge a close election. The votes were close enough that a recount is probably an excellent idea. But I don't expect Allen to play fair.

[jwgh]

Right, a recount makes sense when the margin is so small (assuming one is possible).

Do you think Allen will blame malfunctioning electronic voting machines? Man, I would like that on so many levels.

[jwgh]

(Not least because if people in both parties start worrying about this then maybe something will be done about their less desirable features.)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'd heard of some buzz about a voting machine company that turned out to have ties to the Venezuelan government. The obvious inferences about the purpose of said buzz had been made.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Copy of NYT article here (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102906Y.shtml).

However,

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

the machines shown in all the news footage from Virginia say DIEBOLD in big letters. That would make for the sweetest irony.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Now the Associated Press is calling it for Webb in the process of a preliminary "canvass" (I'm not sure what that means; some sort of audit short of a full recount?) and there are indications that Allen may concede soon.

[iayork.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's nothing to recount -- no paper trail. The "canvass" seems to mean checking their math.

The lack of a paper trail is something that's been a concern about the voting machines -- honestly, I never expected that it would be a problem for a Republican.