The Republican Party of Virginia issued a press release this evening regarding the recount. Here it is, in its entirety:
STATEMENT OF FORMER DEMOCRAT ATTORNEY GENERAL AND FORMER STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS MEMBER
-Regarding the Attorney General Election-RICHMOND – Former Democrat Attorney General Stephen Rosenthal and former State Board of Elections member and Republican Delegate John H. (“Jack”) Rust issued the following statement today regarding the Attorney General election:
“We are troubled by the lack of transparency in a vote certification process that consistently has shifted vote totals in the attorney general election.”
“Election day is a public event open to observers. Local electoral boards were required by law to conduct canvasses at public meetings attended by citizens, the press, and observers from both political parties. After the local canvasses concluded, however, the State Board of Elections’ certification process has gone behind closed doors with little or no explanation to the public. In what should be an open and readily apparent vote certification process, the State Board appears to have ignored its role of managing the certification process and has allowed local electoral boards free reign to do so without public involvement.”
“After the initial election night count, the margin of victory was roughly 3,000 votes. In the ensuing time, that margin has decreased by about 90% to less than 350 votes. The public and both political parties have been provided little explanation by neither the State Board nor the local election boards for such a significant shift in vote tallies.”
“We agree wholeheartedly with respected political scientist Larry Sabato as quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “‘It’s amazing, that’s all you can say,’ he said. ‘The net changes are all going in one direction, toward the Democrat, which is unusual but possible.'”
“The statistical unlikelihood of such an odd occurrence raises concerns. More worrisome is the undisclosed process, not provided for in the Code of Virginia, by which some of these changes have been discovered. For example, the State Board of Elections notified both campaigns that 56 additional paper ballots had yet to be counted in Chesapeake. This number subsequently has changed multiple times. Apparently, additional ballots were counted last Friday. Then, after the counting was supposedly complete, the tally changed again on Monday with no explanation other than that an ‘error’ had been made. Last Thursday, the State Board of Elections reduced the vote total for Bob McDonnell by 10 votes in Fauquier County notwithstanding the fact that the Fauquier County electoral board had certified the higher number and without providing any explanation to the public.”
“It appears that the electoral boards in Chesapeake, Fauquier and elsewhere have unilaterally decided to re-open sealed envelopes or locked machines or to change vote totals without public participation and without being directed to do so by the three-member State Board of Elections or a court. Such renegade vote ‘counting’ falls outside the powers these boards hold under the law of Virginia and raises serious questions about the integrity of the process by which the vote total has changed since Election Day.”
“We call upon the State Board of Elections to manage and control a certification process that is fair and transparent to the public, press and both political parties.”
I certainly hope they’re not talking out of their ass. The RPV will win no friends at the State Board of Elections by slinging around unfounded charges of impropriety. (I’m not saying that they’re unfounded — it’s something that I’m utterly unequipped to judge the veracity of.) I can’t blame the McDonnell campaign for being alarmed, though — they’re in the midst of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Several Republican bloggers here in Virginia were angry that anybody had even hinted that there could be any sort of voting impropriety. I’ll be curious to see whether they’ll change their minds on the danger of miscounts and the potential for fraud.
It does not do justice to Steve Rosenthal, by the way, to describe him as a mere former “Democrat [sic] Attorney General” — he’s also a member of Bob McDonnell’s transition team.
It sounds accurate to me: “former Democrat” versus “Democratic former Attorney General.”
Only if he is, in fact, a former Democrat. Even then, that would be a very unclear method of stating that he’s both a former Democrat and a former attorney general.
It would be best to describe him as “Democrat Steve Rosenthal, a former Attorney General,” or “former Democratic Attorney General.”
I have been watching the recount numbers shift and like many others, I am totally stunned that the vote count could go from 3,000 plus to less than 350 votes. This indicates to me that Creigh Deeds needs to hold his ground and not walk away from this fight. This whole business stinks.
Adding to the noxious air, I learned this week that the Republican Party had internal polling (within a week of the election) that showed Kilgore tanking big time. Word in Richmond politicoe circles is that Richmond’s “prima dona” dictator, L. Douglas Wilder, decided to endorse Kaine because the internal polling showed there was no way anybody could “save” Kilgore and, besides, Wilder doesn’t like to back L-O-S-E-R-S.
Still, Wilder still “owed” the Repugs, however, because they gave him every charter change he asked for during the last Gen. Ass. session. That debt, combined with all the dirty money from the G.O.P. that flowed into McDonnell’s campaign coffers –SURPRISE, SURPRISE ! — positioned them to be able to exact a heavy price from Wilder — his unwarranted attack on Creigh Deeds, followed by a half-hearted endorsement of Kaine that included a back-handed slap that said Wilder didn’t much appreciate the Warner/Kaine tax hike.
I can’t help but wonder how much money Wilder received for betraying his fellow Democrat, Creigh Deeds. Whatever the amount, plus the charter changes, accounts for why many Democrats throughout Virginia will never be able to forgive Wilder.
What he did establishes that he is indeed a DINO — as in Democrat in name only and as in DINOSAUR. Just as the real dinosaurs got theirs, so, too, will Wilder.
Sorry, but this raises legitimate questions. I certainly begin from the presumption that errors can and do occur in the heat of Election Day counts. But unless someone can explain it to me, if the SBE numbers are correct, there is evidence of a fair level of incompetence/corruption in counting the votes at the local level. Absent that, counts which change considerably — and I have some questions about the methodology of saying “a difference of 90%”; after all, we’re talking about an election in which nearly 2 million votes were cast, and a change of about 2500 votes, or 1/10 of 1% — raise legitimate questions. There is a problem somewhere. Where? I do not know.
I agree whole-heartedly with the Republican party that we need transparancy in our balloting and counting process. This is why I am opposed to electronic balloting, incidentally. It looks to me like they are just demanding an explanation. Well I want one, too. The fact that my candidate (Creigh Deeds) is the one who is gaining is irrelevant. I don’t want a single vote counted for my party that we didn’t really get. Period.
Put yourself in the position of either Criegh or MCDonnell. Both these guys are going through hell right now. They naturally expected that at this point they’d have won or lost and either way could move ahead with their lives. It’s been over a week now and the tally keeps moving but they don’t always know why and they aren’t seeing the oversight that we should expect in a free republic. I don’t see any evidence of major impropriety and certainly no indications of dishonesty on anyone’s part. In fact I think that the State Board of Elections is doing a pretty OK (but not incredible) job here. But both these guys are exhausted and annoyed and just want to know what’s going on already. Let’s give them both a break.
If Republicans want an explanation of why the tally checks have favored Republicans, perhaps they can take comfort in considering that apparantly Democratic precincts just can’t count for shit and generally don’t have their act together. They lose stuff or forget to count ballots and despite best intentions seem to be generally incompetant at a grassroots level. This is actually my impression of the grassroots organization of the Democratic party in Virginia generally. We really have no clue what we’re doing most of the time. Feel free to point and laugh at us.
Hey “SoccerMom”, sounds like you are still smarting from your perch in the 3rd district over the Mayor trying to hold the School Board accountable.
Frankly, this sounds to me like a setup for another Washington-state-style “undermine the legitimacy of the result if it looks like the Democrat is going to win.” They’re flat-out lying about transparency and they know it. The vote totals are being certified through a canvass that is open to observers, according to the SBE: “Any qualified voter and any media representative is also permitted to attend. These persons may observe but may not interrupt the meeting.”
Furthermore, if errors are found and adjustments made, “Officers representing both parties must be present.”
If the initial margin had been larger, no one would be complaining about the “statistical unlikelihood” of a shift of 2700 votes out of 2 million.
At least this one started out close enough that we don’t have to listen to the GOP whine about how a candidate to takes things to the courts doesn’t trust the voters, right up to the point when the vote shifts against them and they “have no choice” but to take it to the courts.
hmm — I DARE them to make an argument based on statistical probability, given what happened in OH on election night 2004 ..
btw, I have met Jack Rust — his kid Bobby was my student in a Princeton Review SAT prep class – I remember Bobby calling and thanking me for how much his scores went up;. We once had an etra session at the Rust house, which was quite nice in a nice wooded setting
returning to the main subject .. was it not a fact that in the recount in Wilder’s governor’s race, almopst all of the mvoement was in one direction??? Just curious.
one further note
it is incorrect to say all of the recount has been in one direction. I watched very closely during the first week, and saw the net effects of votes being added cuase the margin to move in both directions. Doeds that mean the figures on the state website were only looked at by Rust and crew when they were moving in favor of Deeds, or are they being typical (in that sense, like the White House and intelligence on Iraq) and only citing the information that “supports” thneir case?
ROFLMAO……SoccerMom knows a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans, including Carol Wolf and Doug Wilder. But, alas, SoccerMom is not nearly as smart and savvy as Wolf nor as diabolical and devious as Wilder. SoccerMom admires Wolf’s dedication to the children, educators and taxpayers in the City of Richmond and despises the way Wilder and his pal seem determined to evict the school board from City Hall and force Richmond’s taxpayers to foot the bill (we’re talking millions) because Mr. Wilder and Mr. Goldman want to have a perch atop City Hall. Mrs. Wolf is a nice lady, far nicer than SoccerMom ever will be….
………..And, far nicer than Doug Wilder and Paul Goldman ever will be.