Looks like Iowa is the last state standing. As a resident of Davenport, Iowa, I can at least be proud that Democratic leadership here is casting aside pressure and counting every last vote.
I voted absantee, so at least I'll know that the final count has my vote in it.
Des Moines Register, Nov. 5, 2004
Last state standingThree days after the presidential election, Iowa is the only state not able to declare a winner.
By LYNN CAMPBELL, REGISTER STAFF WRITER
http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041105/NEWS10/411050364/1001&lead=1The presidential campaign started in Iowa - and it's not over here yet.
After Tuesday's election, Iowa is the only white spot on a red and blue U.S. electoral map. That doesn't make the state a star.
"We're borderline on being an embarrassment," said Dave Roederer, Iowa chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign. "We've got every state in the union being able to call the election except us."
Unofficial results Thursday showed Bush defeated Kerry in Iowa by 14,045 votes. That tally will keep changing through Tuesday, as special precinct boards across the state continue to meet to count 15,264 provisional ballots and as many as 50,000 uncounted absentee ballots.
The margin is larger than Wisconsin's, where Kerry defeated Bush by 11,813 votes, according to unofficial results. However, Wisconsin has been declared a Kerry state.
But no one's officially calling Iowa for Bush, despite Republicans, Democrats and election officials agreeing Thursday that Iowa's uncounted ballots are unlikely to change who won the state.
"I don't think it is too close to call, but whose job is it to call?" asked Phyllis Peters, the spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office in Iowa. "There's no one here that is holding out any belief that what numbers do come in are going to change the result. All we care about is that the votes are counted."
Even John Norris, Kerry's national field director, said Thursday he saw the writing on the wall. "I don't expect it to change the outcome, but everyone has the right to have their vote counted," he said. "It would be more embarrassing if we didn't make sure all the votes were counted."
Some media organizations had also not called New Mexico for either candidate Thursday night.
History suggests the counting of provisional and absentee ballots after an election does not change the outcome of the race. In 2000, Election Day results indicated Democrat Al Gore won Iowa by about 5,000 votes.
That changed only slightly after the counting of provisional ballots, then called challenged or "special" ballots. While as many as 17,266 votes were added to Bush and Gore's totals, Iowa's final tally showed Gore won by 4,144 votes.
"What we are saying very officially and very consistently is, nothing we know is going to change the trends," Peters said. "If the trends from all the votes cast so far show one thing, the remainder of votes is going to follow the same trend."
Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver, a Democrat, has estimated that the state still has 30,000 to 50,000 absentee ballots to count - a number that Republicans and some county officials question. The number is based on 500,000 absentee ballots being requested and only about 440,000 returned.
"That might be what's out," said Polk County Auditor Michael Mauro. "What comes back, a lot of these will be postmarked too late."
Roederer said that while 50,000 Iowans haven't returned absentee ballots they requested, some of those people went to the polls and cast a provisional ballot instead.
Peters and Burlington Democrat Elaine Baxter, who was Iowa's secretary of state from 1986 to 1994, insisted Thursday that it isn't election officials who are dragging their feet on calling the state for Bush this year. "It's been my experience that it's the press that tells the public the outcome of the election," Baxter said.
Most media outlets around the nation rely on The Associated Press for election results.
Frank Fisher, the news organization's Des Moines bureau chief, said Thursday the AP is declining to project a winner in the presidential race because of the large number of absentee ballots still out. He said his office is operating independently from Culver in projecting a winner in Iowa.
"The Associated Press has been doing this for a long, long time, and we want to be right," Fisher said. "We've been wrong rarely in the past. There's just too many absentee ballots still out. We're constantly analyzing the data and the trends. We have experts in Washington looking at this."
Culver, Iowa's top election official, was seen election night at the Hotel Fort Des Moines huddling with fellow Democrats, including Norris and Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer, talking about the election.
Culver suggested the race was too close to call when he said results would be unofficial until Tuesday, because thousands of provisional ballots and absentee ballots had yet to be counted.
"I don't understand what Culver's doing," said House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Sioux City Republican. "I don't get it. I don't understand that. It's a little embarrassing that we're not done. Secretary Culver decided to spend more money on sending out mailings than on buying new voting machines."
Votes yet to be counted include absentee ballots that were postmarked by Nov. 1 and may still arrive in county auditors' offices by noon Monday. Mauro on Thursday said "several hundred" of those ballots had arrived in Polk County since Tuesday night.
The other ballots to be counted are those where there was a question or problem on Election Day. On Thursday, eight people - four Democrats and four Republicans - sat in a room at the Polk County Convention Complex going through 1,335 absentee ballots that lacked a signature, identification or address, or had an open affidavit envelope.
A larger group will today begin going through Polk County's 3,190 provisional ballots. In the past, about seven out of every 10 provisional ballots have counted.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
