Most states are still two weeks from having official vote totals announced. Many provisional ballots still haven’t been counted. In the most suspenseful U.S. House race in the nation, Ohio’s 15th district, the 27,000 provisional ballots haven’t been counted yet because there is a legal dispute over which ones are valid. The issue is whether provisional ballots are valid if the voter signed the outer envelope, but failed to print his or her name next to the signature. There are 1,000 ballots with a signature but no printed name. U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley says he will rule by 5 p.m. Thursday (November 20), and then the ballots can be counted. The case is State ex rel Skaggs v Brunner, 2:08cv-1077, s.d. The Secretary of State says those ballots are valid, but two voters who support the Republican nominee say they are not.
Without the provisionals, Republican nominee Steve Stivers leads Democratic nominee Mary Jo Kilroy by 393 votes.
Other U.S. House races that are very close, and in which not all the ballots have yet been counted, are the California 4th district, and the Virginia 5th district. In the California 4th district, Republican nominee Tom McClintock leads Democratic nominee Charlie Brown by 622 votes, with tens of thousands of ballots still not counted. In the Virginia 5th district, Democratic nominee Tom Perriello leads Republican nominee Virgil Goode by 745 votes, but there is a controversy over whether to count foreign absentee and military ballots that arrived late.
Then tens of thousands of ballots in the CA-4 race are mostly from conservative areas, and the ones counted thus far were mostly from the liberal bastions of the district. That’s a McClintock win.
The other, Virginia 5, is a tossup.
A judge in Richmond dismissed John McCain’s campaign from the suit alleging that late military absentee ballots should be counted on the grounds that he did not have standings the federal law at issue. The Department of Justice, however, will be permitted to substitute as the plaintiff. A hearing in the matter will not be held until AFTER the results of the election become final.
It appears that only there are only 200 late absentee ballots in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, meaning that even if Virgil Goode won every single vote from these disputed ballots, he would still trail Congressman-elect Tom S. P. Perriello (D-VA) by 545 votes.
The Virginia State Board of Elections will official name Perriello as the winner on November 24. At that time, Goode could ask for a recount.
As a historical note, Virginia recounts rarely overturn results. In 2005, Bob Marshall (R-VA) defeated Creigh Deeds (D-VA) by 323 votes out of almost 2 million votes cast. The recount resulted in Marshall picking up a handful of votes.
This is because Virginia uses electronic voting machines and recounts are not subject to examination of any paper trail. In fact, Virginia doesn’t have paper trails. So the recount is nothing more than asking the machine to print out the results again and tallying the results. It is very unlikely that a recount will result in a Goode victory.
D.C. Finegold-Sachs,
The name of the man who beat Deeds for Virginia Attorney General is named Bob McDonnell; he’s running for Governor next year.
LEGAL and ILLEGAL actions in the election process.
See Bush v. Gore 2000.
NO legal definition of a LEGAL vote in the entire Florida regime (due to armies of govt MORONS) with the various election systems — especially the now infamous and dead punch card ballots.
See the HAVA law sentence — written especially for the Florida regime MORONS.