Get Ready for Ragin’ Recount 2006!

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20061108_ragin_recount_2006/

Posted on Nov 8, 2006

The balance of power in the Senate is hinging on one undecided race: the Virginia Webb-Allen contest. If Webb prevails, Dems will control both houses of Congress. If Allen wins, the GOP will retain power in the Senate.

Webb has a 7,000-vote lead, but we won’t know the final tally until Nov. 27, when the Va. secretary of state certifies the recount.

So prepare yourself for a recount battle second in ferocity only to the 2000 Bush-Gore saga—one replete with legal maneuvering, public posturing and, of course, dirty tricks.

Update: CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin said that Va. only has electronic voting machines; and as such, there will be no paper trails, and thus no “hanging chad” drama. Toobin also said that he had never heard of a re-count overturning a 7,000 vote margin.

Washington Post:

Democratic challenger James Webb held a slim lead over Republican Sen. George Allen today in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race, a dramatic and nasty battle that almost certainly will be decided by a recount next month.

With 99.8 percent of the votes tallied by 11:30 a.m. today, Webb claimed victory with a lead of about 7,000 votes among the more than 2.3 million cast—a difference of three-tenths of a percent. Some absentee ballots in James City County, Isle of Wight County and Fairfax City were still being counted today.

But an adviser for Allen said the senator will wait for the results to become official on Nov. 27—just shy of three weeks away—before accepting the tally.

Link

James Webb (left) and George Allen