Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman has seen his chances slip away of overtaking Democrat Bill Owens in the vote tallies in New York's 23rd congressional district, but he's now circulating an email to supporters announcing he's revoked his concession and that "ACORN and the unions" tampered with election results to prevent him from winning.
The email, which is pretty long for a campaign fundraising note, lists all the regularities Hoffman has counted, and it reads sort of like a manifesto of all that's fishy about the election results, according to him.
The Washington Independent's David Weigel thinks this isn't the type of behavior that will help Hoffman in a potential 2010 rematch against Owens, who will have only served one year in Congress by then. (Weigel also reports that ACORN has said it had no volunteers in the district.) Nonetheless, Hoffman is blasting ACORN and trying to raise money for a re-canvass of the district.
At the end of the email, Hoffman alleges: "P.S. I ran a different kind of campaign, one where Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party and 9/12 activists rallied around. ACORN, the unions and Democratic Party were scared, and that's why they tampered with the ballots of voters in NY-23..."
Here's the full email Hoffman sent out to supporters:
Dear Fellow Conservative,
As evidence surfaces, we find out that reported results from election night were far from accurate. ACORN and the unions did their best to try and sway the results to Obamacare supporter Bill Owens.
I was forced to concede after receiving two pieces of grim news - - down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night - and barely won my stronghold in Oswego County.
Get every vote counted in NY-23On Election Night, the information we received was far different from what we received this week!
Rest assured, they will not succeed, and I am therefore revoking my statement of concession.
That is why I am writing you today. Recent developments leave me to wonder who is scheming behind closed doors, twisting arms and stealing elections from the voters of NY-23.
I'm sure you are as dismayed as I am to learn of the mischief that took place in Oswego and neighboring counties. We know this would not be the first time for the ACORN faithful to tamper with democracy.
Now it's time to actually count every legal ballot and I need your help to ensure the people of NY-23 get the Congressman THEY ELECTED. Please donate now to help me ensure every vote is counted!
A recanvassing in the 11-county district shows Owens' lead has narrowed to 3,026. In Oswego County, I was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, but inspectors found I actually won by 1,748 votes
Let's force them keep this recanvassing active! Let's give this election a chance to end differently! Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on "chaos" in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up, and on inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. This sounds like a tactic right from the ACORN playbook.
The district's second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where I had also benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining another 700 votes. Owens led by 300 votes on the final election night tally, but after recanvassing, I'm now leading by 424 votes.
Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where my vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.
The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which the state Board of Elections distributed about 10,200.
The people of NY-23 deserve to have their ballots counted properly, but we can't let ACORN or the unions keep that from happening. They have more lawyers and more experience tampering with democracy.
State Board of Elections Communications Director John Conklin said the state sent a letter to the House Clerk last week explaining that no winner had been determined in the 23rd District.
Now it's time to actually count every legal ballot and I need your help to ensure the people of NY-23 get the Congressman THEY ELECTED. Please donate now to help me ensure every vote is counted!
We need to make sure that fair elections are a reality in NY-23, just like our Founding Fathers envisioned. So long as we remain the "land of the free," we MUST ensure every vote is counted.
Help us today so we may be the first of many conservative victories during the Obama Regime.
Yours in Freedom,
[signature]
Doug Hoffman
P.S. I ran a different kind of campaign, one where Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party and 9/12 activists rallied around. ACORN, the unions and Democratic Party were scared, and that's why they tampered with the ballots of voters in NY-23. Will you please contribute today so we can show them that fair elections are the Will of the People? Thank you.
"Weigel also reports that ACORN has said it had no volunteers in the district."
What does one even make of this level of credulity, given that within the past two months ACORN has been outed for covering up massive embezzlement and lying about the extent of complicity with child prostitution in their organization?
Weigel writes for a paper whose parent company is funded in part by Soros, and Weigel isn't exactly a credible source. He might have gotten it right in this case, or he might not.
P.S. I'm not a Hoffman fan, due to his support for massive imm., something that - seemingly unbeknownst to his followers - would raise their taxes and reduce their power. Tea party fail.
For these guys, it's all ACORN, all the time. I'm surprised they haven't mentioned those unconfirmed sightings of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright in the vicinity on election day.
And don't forget the illegals -- there were two people totally speaking Mexican outside one of the polling station.
LOL...or, fantastically, the black panthers.
Talk about your sore losers. I don't know how what he's saying can be considered as anything other than outright slander.
"Mexican"?! Is that an uneducated substitute for "Spanish" in Texas?
Please allow me to educate. ACORN has been accused on Voter Registration Fraud and not Voter Fraud. ACORN pays people by the number of voter registration forms they turn in. So their employees were filling out forms with fake names so they could get more money from ACORN and ACORN wasn't properly overseeing this process. Some were names like Mickey Mouse or names of Dallas Cowboy players. It only becomes voter fraud, if a person actually shows up and tries to vote under a name that isn't theirs. I don't think people truly understand how difficult it would be for people to vote more than once. You would have to have more than one ID that matches the name on the form. In FL, they swipe our licenses through a machine that reads the bar code. You think ACORN is creating sophisticated duplicate licenses?!?!
You realize Democrats oppose ID checking at polls in every state because they claim it intimidates Black people (and hurts homeless people).
And that voter ID checking is only passed a few states. And the Democrats fought it all the way to the Supreme Court?
I really despise the R vs. D shtick. But there are some areas where the Democrats really are not only dead wrong, but completely corrupt to. The voter ID bit is definitely the case. If they were serious they'd be helping to pass legislation that checks for ID, but to manage things in a way that would prevent disenfranchisement.
BTW, I'm pretty sure NY does not check ID at the polls.
Democrats are every bit as corrupt as Republicans in getting their agenda shoved through, all the while sneering their moral superiority at conservatives. Republicans nor Democrats in Congress care little beyond maintaining their positions of power. The huge disparity in jobs claimed by Democrats to have been created/saved under the current Administration can easily be explained away by a very complex set of calculations that explain why 100 jobs can be declared as being created even though only four people are receiving paychecks. Liars every one. Good riddance to Bush and Cheney; looking forward to good riddance to Obama, Pelosi. Signed, Ex Democrat
Even if IDs are not checked at the polls, they are verified by the registrar's office after initial registration. Here in Maryland I got a letter asking for additional information (including my social security #) after I registered online since my Florida DL (we had just moved) was not enough for them. I rather doubt Micky Mouse or Bilbo Baggins will make it onto the voter rolls unless they have a valid DL or SSN.
I think you mean, "corrupt TOO"
No.
Democrats oppose checking identification at the polls because of the Voting Rights Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_act
meaning, it's [asking for ID] against the law.
Really, before you people post.....check that....say anything publicly READ and find facts to support your argument.
*And by "you people", I mean the uninformed*
A poll worker at the last election I voted in a few weeks ago was saying to another lady that she had wished for years that there was a voter ID check.
So, I asked her, in all those years, how many people had she seen caught trying to vote fraudulently, and she said, ah, um, um, and I said Zero, right? And she said, well, yes.
So I asked her what the elderly or disabled or poor with no driver's licenses were supposed to do about getting an ID, like sit for the 4 hours or so it takes at the widely scattered DMV offices in our rural area to get one. And she had no reply.
Voter ID = disenfranchisement for the elderly, disabled, and poor.
We could solve the ID problem rather easily. Anyone without a DL or state ID should be able to present themselves with their birth certificate and social security # at a full-service post office and receive a picture "citizens ID", for a nominal fee (say, $10). The SSN can be quickly cross-checked online nowadays, and that should be sufficient to verify people are not using fictional names.
Evidence? He don't need no stinkin' evidence!
Get the New GOP Bull--Lowbrow and Evidence-Free!
(same as the old bull)
If you donate some money, the candidate will tell you whether the problem is uncounted votes, or ballots with which ACORN tampered.
Right. ACORN is omniscient and all powerful and has insiders running all the election boards. There's no way that this third-party 9/12 activist nutjob could have lost on his own because he split the right-wing vote (and because a majority of people saw him for what he is: a deluded kook).
"Yours in Freedom"??? What kind of maudlin bro-mance does this guy imagine to be having with Thomas Jefferson, anyhow?
It's amazing how the internet age has enabled so many who slept through Government class in high school to live in a self-constructed alternate reality in which they imagine that somehow, someway, the legal framework of our democracy is being subverted... And they would be correct, but only to the extent that the "Unitary Executive" theory propounded by Dick Cheney's office gave the executive branch nearly unlimited power to do anything it wanted to violate the constitution, so long as it wrapped it up in the mantle of national security.
Truly, a new-age mysticism! If it weren't so damaging to the fabric of American democracy, it would be hilarious...
Remember when Franken gained on the recanvassing and that was ACORN's fraud too?
http://www.wiserthanthecrowd.com/2009/11/more-acorn-paranoia.html
crossuab November 19, 2009 11:57 AM
Please allow me to educate. ACORN has been accused on Voter Registration Fraud and not Voter Fraud.
****************
Educate yourself, first.
Doodlebug,
Crossuab, above makes a factual statement. Voter Registration Fraud is orders of magnitude different the Voter Fraud. One is akin to a misdemeanor, the other is a federal offense (Voter Fraud being the federal offense).
Show an example or a systematic voter fraud scheme that is linked to ACORN and you might have a point. But at least from my checking,that of most major news organizations, and the Dept. of Justice there is not systematic abuse going.
Hoffman obviously isn't running on all his cylinders. Unfortunately, like the Reverend Al, he and his ilk have a huge audience of cretins who eat up the crackpot delusions which the right traffic in.
Alas, American politics is currently plagued by the curse of a throughly malign right, reflected in Hoffman, and a thoroughly incompetent opposition, reflected in The Atlantic.
How can The Atlantic stand for credible journalism when spellcheck is its idea of editing: "The email...lists all the regularities [sic] Hoffman has counted...."? How can The Atlantic be taken seriously when it delivers its print edition with over 30 pages missing, then offers to send a replacement in 2-3 weeks?
Regardless the nobility of combating Hoffman and his ilk, magazines with The Atlantic's shoddy editing, poor quality control and contempt for the subscriber, will not be read, and the plunder of the nation by the right will continue unabated.
The election was hijacked by "ACORN and the unions?"
There is not a shred of evidence in his fund-raising letter to support that allegation. I hope they sue this loser.
Dude, you lost, fair and square. Get off the stage and STFU.
Doug Hoffman is an idiot politcally. He is very right wing (to a fault) in a typically moderate district and now he is going to pound his chest screaming about unions and ACORN?
Give me a break! The next election is one year away, and this guy is destroying any shred of poltical capital he had when DeDe bailed. I sincerely doubt Eric Cantor and company are going to come running to support this fanatic.
I mean, Norm Coleman had to wait potentially 6 years and lost, this guy has less than one year, and he blew it.
PLEASE PUT UP A LEGITIMATE REPUBLICAN IN 2010 AND NOT SOME TEA-BAGGING IDIOT!!!!!!
Three words: Wheeling, West Virginia. Unsubstantiated claims about ACORN in your closet == (an unopenned) briefcase full of the names of known communists in the government. Bugaboos to get people to do what you want -- in this case, give Doug Hoffman money.
On the plus side, I'm just waiting until the GOP goes full McCarthy and accuses the Army of housing ACORN sleeper agents. On the down side, crying "voter fraud" is a heck of a way to eat at confidence in the government. If the government is illegitimate or "not us" then it becomes easier to talk yourself into radicalizing.
Hmm. Remember when the GOP hooted at Al Gore and Joe Liebermann (not then their darling Joe) as "Sore Loserman"? I guess when the shoe is on the other foot and they lose a close match they act just as childish. By the way, is it even legal to rescind his concession? Owens was seated in the House on that basis. Isn't it a little too late now?
And really, what's the point? In less than year there will be a rematch. Surely it makes more sense for Hoffman focus forward and start building his campaign and, this time, actually do his homework and get to know his district up close and personal instead of swooping in like some angelic savior from on high.
Of course I suspect the real issue is that his loss gave the far Right (and the teapartiers especially) egg on their face. The Obama-friendly moderates in NJ and VA coasted to victory while the hard Right got a "F" grade in NY. Can't have that! Why, the GOP might actually become a responsible, adult party again! So of course they pretend that ACORN, Boss Tweed, Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader and Sauron the Dark Lord of Mordor somehow conspired together to rob them of their true victory.
I'm from Oswego county and my family and I have been very active in Democratic politics- my dad is an elected town judge, and my mom and in-laws have worked on a number of national, state and local campaigns within the county, and none of us have ever encountered ACORN staff or volunteers active in the county.
Hoffman is further showing that he's a creature of the national right-wing, completely tied up with national right-wing boogeymen, and just as completely out of touch with the realities of political life in NY-23.