Election Irregularities: Huckabee Wants Washington Recount

Posted by D. Cupples |  Yesterday, Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee's campaign put out a press release, in part containing the following:

"The Huckabee campaign is deeply disturbed by the obvious irregularities in the Washington State Republican precinct caucuses. It is very unfortunate that the Washington State Party Chairman, Luke Esser, chose to call the race for John McCain after only 87 percent of the vote was counted....

"According to CNN, the difference between Senator McCain and Governor Huckabee is a mere 242 votes, out of more than 12,000 votes counted-with another 1500 or so votes, apparently, not counted. That is an outrage." (TPM)

Even earlier yesterday, Talking Points Memo reported on counting irregularities:

"As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end. But then with 87% of the returns counted, the Washington state GOP, which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results. That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off. But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.

"Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on the 87% returns. Now, I think it would be borderline for a media organization to declare one candidate a winner when the margin separating first and second was 1.8% with 13% of the results still uncounted. But for the officials holding the election to declare the result on that basis is simply bizarre. But that's what they did." (TPM)

Bizarre indeed! Memeorandum has other bloggers' reactions.

Other BN-Politics' Posts:

* An Illinois Progressive's View of Obama

* Primary 2008 Results: KS, LA, NE, WA, & USVI

* Why do Right Wing Pundits Favor Obama?

* Dems Want Bush to Respect the Law

* A Challenge to Obama Supporters

 

 

Comments

[charles - ohio]

I am a very dissapointed in the failure of the state of washington to make sure that all the votes are were properly counted. This is very scary. I hope this is resolved today. I mean really how hard is it to count 1500 votes. Do it already if there is a question. All the votes should have been counted at least once. Huckabee is not even calling for a recount, just a first count. Why is washington dragging its feet. Do they have something to hide?

[D. Cupples]

Charles,

I'm with you! I'm from Florida. Need I say more?