Recounts requested by Blumenauer & DeFazio opponents - really!

Kari Chisholm FacebookTwitterWebsite

OK, this is a little weird.

Delia Lopez, who lost to Earl Blumenauer by over 125,000 votes (out of some 275k cast), has asked elections officials to conduct a recount in six Multnomah County precincts. And Art Robinson, who lost to Peter DeFazio by around 33,000 votes (out of some 300k cast), has asked for a recount in several counties in the 4th CD.

Obviously, they're not hoping to win. And since they're way outside the 0.2% margin required for the state to pay for a recount, it's going to be expensive. I don't have the foggiest idea what the point could be.

At his blog, "Isaac Laquedem" says it's a "civic contribution":

s. Lopez doesn't expect this partial recount to change the result of the election, and under Oregon law it can't. Rather, she's viewing this as a sort of test of the elections process: do the machines that count Multnomah County's ballots accurately count the ballots? And do the ballots in the precinct boxes match up with where they're supposed to be?

It's an interesting civic contribution that Ms. Lopez is making; in effect she's paying a few dollars to the county elections office to give the public another report on our system for counting the votes.

I'm not sure I buy that. Knowing these two candidates, it's more likely that they've got some bizarro conspiracy theory they're trying to prove. What that could be, I don't know.

There's more from Janie Har at the Oregonian and Peter Wong at the Statesman-Journal

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    Conspiracy theory or not, if it reveals problems in our election system, let's embrace the outcome and fix the problems. Better confidence for all. And in this case it sounds as though taxpayers won't be footing the bill.

    (I'm all for taxpayers footing the bill to get a fair, verifiable, reproducible and accurate count, but if someone else wants to pay, that's fine with me.)

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    To paraphrase Speaker to Be Boehner, what a bunch of chicken crap! If these candidates want a recount, they should pay for it. And every bit of time and resources should be accounted for & the counties should be 100% reimbursed. In addition, the source of the funds should be disclosed. The counties have enough work to do (with less resources) and don't need someone making work for them. This is a perfect example of the right saying there is too much gov't inefficiency and then throwing a wrench in the works with a fishing expedition. They have a right to do it but is it the right thing to do?

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      I clearly do not understand the two additional recount requests. however, Lea, even a casual reader would note that Kari, the Oregonian and Statesman Journal all note that the challengers will pay the full cost of the requested recounts.

      Waste of time and money in the two recounts up north. however here is one conspiracy theory scenario.....

      The two recounts indicate a statistic anomoly suggesting an undercount of republican votes throwing the outcome of the gubanatorial race into doubt. (Playing theme music from The Outer Limts lightly in background )

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        Hmmm...so Kurt, are you suggesting that someone's trying to prove that Republicans undervoted in the gubernatorial race? Or are you suggesting electoral hanky-panky?

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          At first I thought what a waste of time and money, after further thought a recount is something I want to see the results of. I have always had questions about the accuracy of Oregon's vote counting and this is a test of it at the expense to the persons making the request. Impartial observers should participate. If there are problems found within our mail in ballot system I am sure we will correct them.

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    For the record, elections official regularly conduct their own hand-count tests and audits of the system.

    This is silly. But if they want to waste their money, well, whatever.

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    Kurt, I get it that the challengers will pay for it. I was responding to Bob's comment re: being for taxpayers paying for it. The other points I was trying to make were (a) 100% of county resources should be accounted for and reimbursed (I don't believe that's always the case)and (b)the counties have ENOUGH work to do without someone creating more tasks. Especially, when it's likely to be just to make a statement. I can see the necessity in the Bates race (275 votes). But not in these cases. I still think it's a buncha chicken crap!

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    My thoughts are that those two candidates start out with two questions: 1) How many Democratic ballots came into Multnomah County Elections the last couple of hours of the election? & 2) How many days before the election do Multnomah County elections workers get to open ballots up to count them? You're certainly going to have conspiracy theories coming from a minority party's rank-and-file, but it's better to let them pay for the recount they want & not let the conspiracy theories gain more converts. If audits make more of the public more confident in the job that Multnomah County is doing, then I don't think I'd qualify that as a waste of time or money by the actors here.

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    Joyce, the 'toungue firmly planted in cheek' emoticon was missing. I was not being serious.at.all.

    Have a great day.

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    Multnomah County had a problem in some districts where voters received the wrong ballot design for their district, forcing the county to resend ballots to a fairly large number of voters. I think there's a reasonable case to be made for recounting that subset of ballots though I have no idea whether that's Delia Lopez's angle.

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      If 988 is "a fairly large number" than yeah, it was a fairly large number, but since the error did not involve the Congressional race I don't know why this would be relevant.

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        Of course the error involved the congressional race. Every race on the ballot may have been affected as multiple ballots containing all races were sent to the same voters.

        As I said, I have no idea whether this is Lopez's angle, but in my view, the mistake affords a legitimate basis for a recount.

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    .. but having said that, I don't think they'll find anything significant. There are too many safeguards in place for there to be any kind of systemic fraud in the counting of Oregon ballots.

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