Recounts 'R Us

After an extended holiday hiatus The WitList returns, still snarky and pissed off but somewhat chubbier, with an update on how recounts in places other than the Ukraine are progressing.

The Other Washington: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire is pleading for a recount after the finally tally in the Starbucks State had her losing by 42 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. But she needs moola, and fast – at least $750K by 5 pm on Friday. If you’re not all tapped out, you can contribute here (me, I’m planning to list MoveOn.org as a dependent on my 2004 taxes). Gregoire has a solid history of backing pro-consumer issues as state attorney general, and Lord knows we need fewer Republicrats in state houses. Note: The Kerry campaign has just kicked in $250K to the recount effort in WA. Only a half mill more to go.

New Hampshire Redux: It took weeks to recount votes in 11 New Hampshire precincts (apparently they had only one abacus and were forced to share) but final results show little change from the original vote totals. Thus vindicating the manufacturer of the ancient voting machines used in that state (which has since been acquired by Diebold). Nader campaign officials were quick to note this tally should have no bearing on recounts in Ohio or Florida, which used machines of a more recent vintage. I guess we’ll have to keep that state in Kerry’s column after all.

Recount Southwestern Style: Green and Liberal Party candidates (aka the “Glibs” – a truly wonderful moniker) have been granted a manual recount in New Mexico. But a voter-driven suit demanding a recount in Nevada was turned down by a county judge who declared the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that a recount would change the outcome of the election. In other words, if you don’t already know the answer, you can’t ask the question. Sounds like the kind of logic you’d expect from a judge in Vegas.

More Dread in Ohio: The San Jose Mercury reports that Ohio counties have certified their results and sent them to the Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell’s office. His office is expected to certify statewide results on Monday, December 6, but a recount still wouldn’t begin until Dec 11 – leaving less than two days before the Electoral College meets to officially anoint Herr Bush as Fearless Leader.

As Keith Olbermann reports, once Jesse Jackson attached himself to the Ohio Vote Fraud issue, media-shy Mr. Blackwell has started popping up on TV. This once again illustrates the Republican’s “Alan Keyes Gambit”: If criticized by person with black skin, find black person to counterattack, even if he is a buffoon. Given that there are only about six black people in the Republican Party (seven if you count Colin Powell), this tactic should be easy to defeat. Eventually they have to run out of buffoons.

Meanwhile, even more statistical irregularities in Ohio voting are popping up, courtesy of Buzzflash. It appears the increase in turnout for heavily Democratic counties is strangely low, compared to other counties in the state. Maybe they were all just out visiting with their yokel cousins in Florida.

But Flo, She Don’t Know: The Miami Herald has done a manual recount in three Dixiecrat counties in Northern Florida and declared that all is well in the world of electoral politics. They confirm that Bush did indeed kick Kerry’s windsurfing, flip-flopping ass in counties where people would sooner shoot a liberal than spay their dogs. The three rural counties accounted for only 15,000 votes in total; Kathy Dopp, the statistician who originally raised questions about op-scan voting in Florida, automatically excluded small rural counties such as these in her analysis. Shockingly, such subtleties eluded media coverage of this ‘finding’.

Meanwhile, Battlin’ Bev Harris continues to barnstorm through Florida, serving subpoenas on election officials who fail to comply with her Freedom of Information Act requests. It’s still extremely unclear to me what Harris is doing or what she might ultimately accomplish. (I wrote and volunteered to help her clarify the posts on her Black Box Voting site, but never got an answer.) All I can tell is that she’s kicking ass and taking names, which puts her two steps ahead of the Demos. She’s also involved in some kind of spat with Olbermann. Now children, please, let’s stay focused on the real enemy: Those shameless hussies on Desperate Housewives.