|
As close as the election is, we can be pretty sure that the margin will be within the range in which a losing candidate can request a recount. Here's what Vermont law says: § 2601. Recounts If the difference between the number of votes cast for a winning candidate and the number of votes cast for a losing candidate is less than five percent of the total votes cast for all the candidates for an office, divided by the number of persons to be elected, that losing candidate shall have the right to have the votes for that office recounted. The procedure involves a filing in the Washington Superior Court, where all the ballots are transported and counted by hand. The conventional wisdom is that a recount would be a disaster for us because "we learned from the Salmon recount in 2006 that a recount takes two weeks". I think the conventional wisdom is half right and half wrong. I agree that it would be bad to have a recount. The people who do the recount are people who work in the party and who could, in the absence of a recount, be doing other campaign work. In addition, it does seriously deflate the lift that the winner should come out of the primary with. I do not think it should take two weeks, though. In 2006 the recount was for a general election for Auditor of Accounts. There were just over 250,000 ballots recounted. This year it's a primary, and we're probably in the neighborhood of 65-70,000 votes, which should take approximately a third as much time as the Salmon recount consumed. I don't have any inside information that you don't at this point, but keep in mind that the people you're hearing on the radio and TV also probably don't. |
