Hot damn, that is some cool stuff–has Stevens filed for his free recount yet, or is he waiting for the final results to come in? This would be such a good time for the old dude to just bow out gracefully, concede and slink back home… but he won’t.
There are still a lot of votes to count. State law requires certain drop-dead dates for counting absentee ballots. What’s encouraging is that Begich has now overcome a 3000 vote deficit to lead by this slim margin.
As of today, Coleman leads Franken by 206 votes in Minnesota and McCain’s lead over Obama in Missouri is now less than 5,000 votes.
In our election last month, in the riding of Kitchener—Waterloo, Ontario, the Conservative candidate defeated the incumbent Liberal by… 17 votes. And in Vancouver South, BC, the incumbent Liberal hung on by just 20 votes.
Moreover, in Brossard—La Prairie, Quebec, a recount reversed the results, with the Bloc Québécois incumbent losing to the Liberal challenger by 69 votes, after he was announced as the winner on election night.
(In a Canadian federal election, there is an automatic recount when the margin of victory is less than 0.1% of the number of ballots cast. Where there is a greater margin, a recount can also be requested by an elector.)
My home state is Alaska (not there right now), and I’m stunned. Never thought I’d see the day when Ted Stevens, Political Force, would be fighting for an election (let alone losing!).
Other interesting close elections in Canada, specifically Quebec general elections: in 1976, the PQ challenger defeated the incumbent Liberal in Hull by two votes out of 30,000 cast after two recounts. And in Saint-Jean in 1994 and Champlain in 2003, the official result was actually a tie for first place, so it was necessary to hold a special election a month later.
Fuck me; I voted Green. :smack: