South Dakota and Daschle

[saddemocrat]

Is there any chance that the votes in S. Dakota could be looked at again? I wonder if a recount would help Tom Daschle?

[JI7]

1. one of the problems was Thune and his people were intimidating Native

Americans from voting. Daschle had filed a lawsuit on that but i'm not sure what has come out of it.

but Daschle always won because of the Native American voters and if the Republicans were successful in keeping them from voting then it's unlikely Daschle would come out ahead in voting.

another thing is Daschle has always been a huge supporter of native americans and always came through for them. but under the bush administration the republicans purposely prevented bills daschle put in to help them from passing to make it look like daschle wasn't doing anything for them. this could also result in decrease of voter turnout.

the republican party's success is all about bigotry.

[Eric J in MN]

2. it was very close

PERCENTAGE


Daschle - 49.42%
Thune - 50.58%

It would be reasonable to have a recount given that closeness, but I'm not aware of any plans for a recount.

[saddemocrat]

3. recount efforts

How would we find out if a recount effort was still a possibility? I'd love to find a way to call for a recount...with the hopes of him keeping his seat after all!

[Eric J in MN]

6. According to this article, South Dakota law

http://www.southdakotaelections.com/Story.cfm?Type=USSenate&ID=3187

"a recount is allowed only if the margin is less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the votes cast in the case of statewide campaigns, or less than 2 percent of the votes cast in legislative district races, according to Secretary of State Chris Nelson."

I think that's a lousy law. If it were up to me, any ballots counted by machines would be recounted by hand.

If they want to tie it to a percentage of closeness, why .25% instead of 2%, for example?

[ISUGRADIA]

4. Daschle gave up on 11-3

unless there was something strange in the numbers that could be pointed out, a 6000 vote margain is pretty solid in this small of state.

Stephanie Herseth in 2010!

[Eric J in MN]

5. It was closer: 4,508 vote difference

Daschle - 193,340
Thune - 197,848
Difference: 4,508

I think that is worth recounting, but if Daschle and the SD Democratic Party doesn't agree with me...

[Robert Oak]

8. 2.2% difference n/t

[sarahlee]

7. Native Americans

put and kept Daschle in, put Tim Johnson in the Senate over Thune in 2002 and right after, Daschle screwed them on treaty water rights.

Neither party cares about Native Americans and they are sick and tired of it.

They liked Kucinich because he actually offered an apology and promised to find all the tribal money the BIA has "misplaced." Kerry did nothing for them. Daschle did even less.

Writing from a SD reservation.