http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200611/POL2006111 4b.html

He wants to challenge the election because the polls said he was supposed to win.

The Feeney-Curtis race wasn't exactly close: With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Feeney had 58 percent (123,557 votes) to Curtis's 42 percent (89,672).

There is an issue with undervotes. A fairly large percentage of votes were not recorded for this race.

Additionally, there were a number of reports from voters having this exact issue.

I don't think enough information was recorded to decide if the Dem won or not. Frankly, I'm hoping there was not enough info for this. That way we can continue to make the case for addressing this issue of confidence.

If we get confidence back, then a lot of these stupid race challenges will go away.

For what it's worth, there are a coupla races like this, with challenges coming from both parties. I hope they follow them through to the fullest.

Well now, a recount would certainly solve the problem, but it's kind of hard to do when there are no votes to recount, right?

I think there may be more of a point to be made about electronic voting than who actually won.

Exactly!

Until we fix that one issue, these kinds of stupid discussions will happen every single election. Basically our system right now does not allow for a challenger to win by a small amount with any degree of confidence.

In many cases, it will depend on who has the better attorneys and how the congress favors candidates.

In CA-50, despite the count being well within the range for recounts and the vote not being certified by the board of elections, Bilbray was flown to the House of Representatives to be sworn in.

Subsequent court challenges failed due to an apparent lack of jurisdiction. The house can choose who it wants to swear in, thus moving the issue from state court to federal court.

Things were close enough in that race to make it either parties game. The machines were kept at peoples homes prior to the election. WTF!?! And the recount monies were paid and essentially wasted due to swift legal action.

Who might have one is not the issue at all. The fact that elections are slippery and of low confidence in all but solid decisions is...

Hmm . . . I see that accountability would help the GOP more this time around. Perhaps we'll let them carry the Do-we-trust-Diebold ball a while.

Actually, if we combine that with more serious legislation and penalties for other tricks like robo calls, dishonest mailers, target lists, etc... it would be good in general.

There is a lot of information surfacing that indicates we would have done even better than we did, had these other dirty tricks not come into play.

VBM is a solid answer to most all of these. Get rid of the polls and you get rid of a lot of nasty tricks used year after year, particularly in the southern states.

(Which is exactly why we had to renew the voting rights act again --they learn slowly there.)

All that aside, us doing better or not really has to be a side issue if advocacy is going to lead to reform. On that note, there is at least one Republican (I'll post the race numbers later) I want to see complete his challenges just like everyone else. Best to keep it neutral or it just looks like partisan bickering.

(You probably know that though!)