Why don't we have a Recount?

As the media cycles the election out of its system, news of recounts and voting machine glitches have already faded from the headlines of our local media, thanks in part to Madrid's ready acquisence to Heather Wilson's 879 vote margin of victory. Elsewhere in the country, however, more determined candidates with greater margins of victory are still toughing it out, waiting for the results of automatic recounts.

The Boston Globe reported

Tuesday, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, as expected, ordered counties to recount votes in the closely divided 15th District. Rep. Deborah Pryce, a seven-term Republican, won the Nov. 7 contest against Democratic challenger Mary Jo Kilroy by 1,055 votes -- a small enough margin to trigger an automatic recount. The three counties in the district must do a recount no later than Dec. 8, Blackwell said.

Pryce, until recently the No. 4 Republican in Congress, had seen her lead in the campaign turn sharply amid the scandal over Rep. Mark Foley and the handling of lurid messages he sent to congressional pages. Pryce had publicly named Foley as one of her best friends in Washington.

Granted that in Ohio the recount provision doesn't require the candidate to pay the cost of the process, it's worth noting that their recount is being triggered by an even greater margin of victory than the one we have in New Mexico's first CD.

While there are some residents of the State of Denial who still believe that the greatest threat to the integrity of our election process is illegal immigrants trying to vote or people falsifying their identities to vote on behalf of others, there's real evidence that voting machines are in fact a far greater reason for concern.

Below is an excerpt sent to me from a PDF of an Arapahoe County, CO., post-election random audit that shows a 300% error on one Sequoia voting machine.
You can check out the whole report at the Colorado elections page here.

The audit reveals a discrepancy between the count given by the machine and the count according to a hand count. As noted previously, in New Mexico, under current law, we won't have any form of verification of the machine count's accuracy until after the 2008 general election, which interestingly enough, former congressional candidate Patricia Madrid has said she will play a role in, presumably on behalf of John Edwards.

Given New Mexico's recent streak of close elections, its surprising that Madrid wouldn't see pursuing a recount as contributing to laying the foundation for a Democratic victory in 2008 by at least ensuring that our voting machines are counting ballots properly.

Also, seeing as how the national trend amongst candidates trailing by greater margins than Madrid was to at least not go out without a fight, Madrid and her consorts may be wondering if throwing in the towel---while simultaneously revealing ambitions for higher office, was really the right move.

But hey, Madrid was flying solo after the election; her campaign manager was jetting off to europe for some rest and relaxation on election night, her spokesperson had taken a job with NARAL and Madrid was left with Corky Medina, her field director, and skeleton crew of staff to take on the challenge of a recount. Ahh, you gotta love those fighting Dems who never played in an O.T. let alone knows what it stands for.

I'd call them bench warmers, but I don't think this crew ever made it to tryouts, with student government meetings and debate practices to attend and all.