Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.
As it turns out, neither was true.{..}
Recanvassing in the district shows that Owens’ lead is now only 3,026 votes over Hoffman, according to the state Board of Elections.
So...what happened? Some highly suspicious under reporting of Hoffman's actual votes.
For instance, in Hoffman's base in Oswego County, Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night. Afterwards inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes, 12,748 to 11,000.
And in Jefferson County, the district's second biggest turnout, Owens supposedly led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman actually leads now by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.
"I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night," Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. "I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference."
Ryan, while acknowledging that Hoffman’s chances of pulling off a come-from-behind victory are still remote, said the campaign is looking at its legal options.
"We’re basically watching and waiting," Ryan said. "We’ve been looking very closely at the recanvass. We’re going to see how this week shapes up, and then we’re going to determine what to do."
Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected -- and erroneous -- close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.
"That’s the thing that threw us off," Ryan said.
Inspectors have found four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero...so far.
How 'bout that?
What this all comes down to is that the race is ultimately going to be decided by absentee ballots.There were about 10,000 of those distributed.
Under a new law in New York military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday,November 16th will be counted provided they were postmarked by by November 2. Any others had to have come in by last Monday, November 9th to be valid. And those absentee ballots are expected to favor Hoffman, since they were issued before RINO Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign three days before the election:
"For Doug to win, we needed a three-way race," Ryan said, adding that the campaign’s internal polls showed Hoffman would win with all three candidates.
"Given the majority of these ballots are from a three-way race, we think the ballots are going to break Doug’s way," Ryan said.
They'll start counting the absentee ballots next week.
Owens swearing in was rushed ahead by Nancy Pelosi so that he could vote for Obamacare, the direct opposite of what he told NY 23's voters during the campaign. If it turns out that Hoffman actually won, Owens will need to be removed once the results are certified.
Stay tuned...
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