NY-20 Special Election

[minionofmidas]

Do we have a date? When can we expect one? (as if I care... some elderly Italianate politico, unless he's far right on economic issues, is almost more appealing than this businessman... still, will be interesting to watch.)

[minionofmidas]

I also didn't know 59 was elderly, Lewis.  I'll have to remind my mother of that. 

That's the age my grandmother died at. And she certainly was "elderly" the few years that I knew her.

(59 is elderly for a congressional Freshman, anyhow. Of course I just judged by the picture. )

[minionofmidas]

They're both uninspiring. Just in different ways.

[minionofmidas]

Of course he thought there was a Republican advantage - there is.  Republicans have a large registration advantage.

And Democrats have a large registration advantage in Oklahoma. So what?

Okay. Republicans have a registration advantage and have represented the district until recently. That take care of the Oklahoma issue for you?

[minionofmidas]

You wanted excitement, here's, well, a poll. From Siena College:

Jim Tedisco (R) - 46
Scott Murphy (D) - 34

Tedisco's favorables are 47/20, Murphy's are 29/10.

See, here's the problem.

Nobody knows who the fu ck Murphy is. If he doesn't change that, game over.

So in other words, Murphy gets 5 points extra just for having a D next to his name.

[minionofmidas]

I think Eraserhead lives in the district, so it's not quite the same as just another vote in the House for the enemy...

He does indeed.

[minionofmidas]

Wow, Tedisco's running scared.

This campaign makes you almost forget that the seat is actually Dem-held atm... of course, once the results are in, we'll be reminded of it anyhow.

[minionofmidas]

Tedisco is working hard to lose, but make get elected anyway.

His position on H.R. 1 reminds me of Kerry's "I was for it before I was against it" line.

Yeah - the reason sane men cannot but fail in politics.

[minionofmidas]

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!!

Either they got some pretty grotesque sig validity requirements, or the Libertarian Party's sig collectors are a lot more lazy than their party's program (intellectually). Which is not an easy feat in itself.

Probably both.

[minionofmidas]

Eh. He should have left the "Stalinist" part out, but otherwise well written.

[minionofmidas]

So what did Tedisco do (or Murphy do) to make this race go haywire?

I think Tedisco was just being himself - dull, inarticulate, and ham handed.

And he didn't know how to deal with a Republican Party that pretends the entire Republican electorate is a cross between southern Alabama's and southern Afghanistan's.

[minionofmidas]

Sources are telling me a 4-6 point win for Murphy tonight...

"Sources"?

The Final Predictions thread.

[minionofmidas]

Btw, the towns surrounding Chatham are hilariously Dutch: Kinderhook, Schodack, Nassau, Ghent, and Austerlitz (and Canaan, damned Reformed tradition).

Austerlitz is Czech. And of course, a Napoleonic battlefield. Which I would suppose it's named for.
And you know who was from Kinderhook?

[minionofmidas]

How... useless.

Columbia County is the most Democratic part of the district, but I'm not sure if the Democratic-ness extends beyond the Hudson area

Assuming that the towns are identical to the sum of the precincts named for them (hopefully not a large assumption) McCain won Greenpoint, Stockport and Livingston.

http://www.columbiacountyny.com/depts/elections/documents/2008results/county/President2009.pdf

[minionofmidas]

Sounds like someone at Ellis Island couldn't spell "tedesco". Which is Italian for "German".

[minionofmidas]

It appears Norm Coleman has given birth to a whole new level of sleaze in elections.

John Cornyn's the name.

[minionofmidas]

Entertaining.

[minionofmidas]

Two things worth noting.

1. Democrats made a huge absentee effort from both the Unions and and the Obama network. Its worth noting that  absentee votes actually favored the Democrats heavily in the 2008 election for the first time.

2. Supporting this, of the 6000 ballots returned, Republicans have a 800 vote lead, and a 600 lead out of the full 10,000 issued. This sounds like a lot, but remember, registration is 42-26-24(R-D-I). Make of that what you will.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/03/too-close-to-call.html

Point 2 is not exactly what the blog says.  The absentee votes have NOT been counted.  In fact, one of the reasons why the Republican and Conservative parties sought and got the mysterious court order was so that absentee ballots could not be counted until uniform standards were set - something that was sorely lacking in Minnesota.  Greene County was set to count its incoming absentees tonight.  That (supposedly) didn't happen.

What the blog says is that of the 10,000+ absentees sought, registered Republicans sought about 600 more (presumably than registered Democrats), and of the 5,906 returned, 798 more came in from registered Republicans (again, presumably more than registered Democrats). 

How those Republicans voted is totally unknown.  For all we know, they could have gone 70-30 to Tedisco while the Independents broke more or less even and Democrats went 90-10 to Murphy, which would actually increase Murphy's lead.

That's what he meant, he just worded it strangely. Hence the comparison to overall registration figures - absentee voters seem to lean slightly less strongly Republican in registration than the district population overall.

[minionofmidas]

also note that some of Saratoga county has outdated touch screens


Fact 1: No one is currently in the lead.
Yes, Scott Murphy has a higher number on the AP's website. But I can not even stress to you how unofficial those numbers are. The process for gathering those numbers is riddled with potential errors:

Results are read off of machines by Person A to Person B who writes them down. Person B calls the BOE and reads - over the phone - the results to Person C at the BOE, who writes them down. Person C gives the sheet to person D who types them into a computer.

That's why you repeat the numbers back.

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That would be good. If it were done everywhere.

Here in Germany, the most common type of error seems to be switched columns.

[minionofmidas]

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They're critising dems for possibly stealing elections... *cough* 2000

you don't understand, that was perfectly legitimate, despite the conduct of the Sec of State's office, although Minnesota was clearly stolen even though the recount process was entirely neutral and transparant.

No, because it was neutral. You don't seem to understand that Republicans have a constitutional right to having all close contests resolved according to their whims because they win more counties and because America is a Republic, not a Democracy.

[minionofmidas]

New York state has registration by party. This allows us to see which absentee ballots are being returned by both parties.
There is currently a Republican advantage among the absentee and military ballots that exceed the current Murphy lead.
(...)Democrats have attempted to paint this election with a broad brush by simply pointing to the misleading voter registration numbers, but a closer look at the district does not legitimize the Democrats' faulty argument that this is a "Republican district."

lol.

[minionofmidas]

what will RowanBrandon say if the Democrat wins here, considering Murphy was ahead on election night?

Was it still rigged?

This isn't a recount. These are votes still needing to be counted. If Murphy's up when these ballots are counted than so be it.

Now you're contradicting yourself.

You were complaining that Coleman's lead went down from 700 to 200 or something like that between election night and the begin of the recount, implying that such changes were not normal.

Now what if Tedisco jumps into the lead before the count is over? How is that different?

UH OH, Murphy's lead has shrunk since election day from 65 to 25.  Someone must have STOLEN THE ELECTION

And now from 25 to 13. I think it'll end up going to Tedisco

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That's impossible. Murphy was leading on election night!! Even though the margin is 13 votes, Tedisco needs to concede....that would be the honorable thing to do! After all, the tally on election night is always final and can never be wrong!

Uh, has Lunar loaned you his crack pipe?

Its a joke aimed at Rowan based off his comments on the Minnesota race...

Carl Hayden has levels of irony perception that would make Mr Spock laugh out loud. I don't know why. It's just something you need to learn to live with.

So apparently the Democratic model was pretty accurate.

No, apparently the cinyc used a model that was similar to the Democratic model.

[minionofmidas]

And the "others" in significantly lag the Republican and Democrat percentage in. 

That's probably the real news here.
It seems to signify that the absentee voters are more partisan, which *might* signify that Tedisco got a higher share of the Republican absentee vote than the Republican day vote, in which case he's favored to wins this. If that's not the case, Murphy's favored.

[minionofmidas]

Yah, it's a waiting game.

[minionofmidas]

I hope it stays tied.