For the sake of the country and checks and balances, though, I'm glad of every Republicn who conceded.

The Dems of the majority, now should propose legislation to make election day a national holiday, and get voting consistent throughout all states. They are not serious, if they do not do these things.

The reason I'm glad that Republicans concede, is that people are dying due to the United States govt being all one party majority and rubberstamping everything Bush/Cheney does...we are in crisis!

It's funny how just about every single diary on dailykos yesterday morning was about machine malfunctions, glitches, failures, suppression, and intimidation with several front page items. Then when it became clear the democrats were sweeping the nation... not a peep.

And on conservative blogs they are saying Allen should avoid 'looking like a loser' and 'not go down to their level' by requesting a recount. Well, good for them. With both parties disinterested, maybe a nice neutral atmosphere will allow real audits to take place.

Interesting note; they said the rnc is bringing in an army of lawyers and publicists in the event of a recount. Now, why would one need an army of public relations people to conduct a recount, hmm?

Brad-

Not sure why you are saying McPherson and Santorum shouldn't concede or shouldn't have conceded, respectively. The margins of victory are not insignificant in either case and I haven't heard anything else that would put those races in question. Heck, McPherson was in charge of his own damn election.

Santorum lost by a landslide, why shouldn't he have conceded, Brad? Ford is the one I think shouldn't have conceded. I can't believe Tennessee voted in a Republican.

The big ones I'm really glad lost were Santorum, Sherwood, and Blackwell. Are Ohioans finally rid of Blackwell??? Is the GOP cesspool in Ohio breaking up? Blackwell, Ney, the Noe's, etc...the Ohio GOP cesspool?

I'm not sure of course but I'll venture a guess as to why Brad might think they shouldn't concede: because all the votes haven't been counted yet.

Joan-

Technically speaking, that's true of virtually every race since there will be absentees, provisionals and various paper ballots to count. Traditionally, a race is conceded when it is known that the number of those outstanding ballots could not overcome the deficit a candidate faces, unless there is some other factor that would bring the race into question. Can't see where any of that would apply to Santorum.

I'm glad that you are staying on top of things. It isn't a partisan issue. And we can't fix this problem without wide bipartisan interest.

Props!

IF the concession of a candidate STOPS the counting of votes, then they should not concede until every last vote is counted. They can go on TV and congratulate their opponent on "their apparent victory" and let them go about organizing for office, but they should not concede until EACH AND EVERY LAST VOTE IS COUNTED.

Otherwise, those people who voted absentee will wonder why the F&%$ they bothered.

And, of course, if they are stupid enough to concede based on applying the "current trend" to the non-counted votes then they probably SHOULD concede because they do not have the intelligence to govern.

If you are behind 100,000 to 90,000 and concede with 15,000 votes uncounted because you ASSUME that the 15,000 will break 8,000 to 7,000 just because the other votes broke that way (Kerry 2004?) then you don't understand the dynamics of why people would vote absentee or how they might be forced a provisional ballot.

Steve - See this for a start.

A few who have not conceded here in upstate NY are Eric Massa in NY 29 and Dan Maffei in NY 25. Both are Democrats who lost by about 3000 votes and are awaiting absentee votes to be counted.

Now, here in NY we have fool-proof lever machines. We are the only state (AFAIK) that has NO touchscreen voting machines except for a small number for the handicapped.

But once the votes leave the machines they are in human hands, so we don't know exactly what happens. There was a concerted effort to suppress votes in most of upstate, but the rural districts were sweeps for Republicans. The reason I'm suspicious of these races is because they're near the district of Tom Reynolds, who was way behind after the Foley scandal, but came on strong at the end over Jack Davis, thanks in no small part to the freak blizzard that devastated most of his district. Reynolds trumpted the fact that he got federal disaster status and funds right away and that may have helped Kuhl in 29.

These are traditional Republican strongholds, about the only ones left in the state, but the top of the ticket was swept by Hillary and Eliot Spitzer for governor and while there weere coattails in most of NY, not in these three districts.

I happily live in nearby Louise Slaughter's district, which I hear will soon have gold-paved streets

Anybody who has ideas on these races can email me HERE or leave comments here. Many Thanks to Brad for his fine work and to patriotic Dems everywhere who carried the day. Party ON!

I am hoping that there is a full on investigation into the vote, and that ALL votes are counted. I want a recount in the Montana and Virginia senate races, along with Tennessee, etc.
Lets uncover all voting irregularities.
In 2004, Washington state govenor's race had a close election, and unlike Florida, it flipped, and proved that the democratic nominee won.
The person who wins should be the one with the most votes, and not the one who doesn't concede.

I like how in one night, we put out of work three of the most notorious secretaries of state over the last five years!! (Kathleen Harris, Kenneth Blackwell, and Bruce McPherson) and at least in two of those states affected, we have some damn good Democrats now to replace them (Ohio and California)!

Has Bruce McPherson conceded? How many mail-in votes are uncounted in California, and how many provisionals remain uncounted, and how many of the optional paper ballots remain uncounted? And do Calif. absentee votes have to be received by, or postmarked by, election day?

These questions are on my mind.

Bev --- Absentee ballots have to be received by election day.

Charlie L #10

The Bowen / McPherson race is a perfect example of what you are saying. When I went to bed near Midnight last night it looked like Bowen was being soundly beaten. Then this morning she is in the lead.

It's only over when all the votes are counted.

i'm of several minds and quite a few arms on this one.

in theory i'd agree with the assumed premise that no one should concede until every single vote has been counted.

but i'm with steve...macpherson was in charge of his own election which he lost...if anyone knows when to give up, it would be the guy in charge.

on a more general note, big kudos to brad for all the hard work you've done to bring this important issue to the forefront of the american psyche. keep up the good work!

I agree with you Brad about Ford. He only lost by 3% and should have stayed in a little while longer. Didn't they "lose" a digital card with a bunch of votes from early voting? Did they ever "Find" them?

Hey "Big Tobacco"...Nancy Pelosi said the Dems are going after "Big Tobacco"...does that mean Nancy Pelosi is after you??? What did you do???

Bluebear2 #17: Bowen was being "soundly beaten" only during the relatively-early California returns. Her slowly catching up to and overtaking McPherson over the course of the night was the same pattern as with Garamendi over McClintock for Lt. Governor, the other statewide races this year, and also with Democratic vs Republican endorsements in last year's special election propositions.

On a California statewide level the Democrat almost invariably gains strength over the course of the night --- this often manifests itself after midnight --- because Los Angeles and Alameda counties are always notoriously late in reporting election results and are both Democratic strongholds.

#4 Big Dan: Here in Tennessee our last three Senators (including the retiring Frist) have been Repubs. It's should be no surprise that we have elected another; especially as we didn't have that strong of a candidate in Ford Jr; who, despite being well-known nationally, had a lot going against him... I wish he wouldn't concede though, until a recount could be attempted. At least that would show that there's nothing to recount here. Our Coordinator of Elections, Brook Thompson, made sure there are NO paper ballots here. The polling place that I worked had one machine that was shut down. No worries, 9 others worked! What happened to the votes already on that machine? Don't worry about 'em!

#9 Charlie L - Yes, every last vote should be counted. Every candidate should follow your advice.

#11 Brad - There ya go, just as you've posted earlier. Pubs'll use the hackability factor against Dems, even if Dems won't use it! Do y'all wonder if the Pubs are throwing us a bone to set up the '08 presidential hack? We gotta keep the pressure on for HB550. Paper ballots, random recounts. The party's not over here by a long shot; but me? I'm celebratin' for a few days. I feel that Brad Friedman and the fighters against electile dysfunction are the reasons that we didn't see more obvious election fraud. Let's keep a keen eye on the vote totals vs. the polls (exit polls?) to see what happened.

Me, I'm gonna go have a drink and play some music! Congrats to Brad, Bev, Lou Dobbs and all y'all American patriots that have worked so hard and long on our issue. We ain't done yet!

shw

My complete list of those who shouldn’t concede is the same as a complete list of those who ran for office. Absolutely nobody should concede until they can verify that all of the votes in their race were counted as cast. Since our current election guidelines strive to make verified voting as difficult as possible it is impossible for almost if not all candidates to verify that votes were counted as cast. That problem is correctable and needs to be corrected before we can establish democracy in this country. The “democracy” we claim to have is clearly broken and needs to be fixed ASAP!
Where is the logic in being more willing to concede a race which was not close over one that was close when the only thing we have to verify how close those races were is a count we can not trust? Is massive fraud some how better than a small amount of fraud?

The correct answer to eliminate vote fraud is verified voting. That would solve our problems. Everybody associated with our elections wants to test the EVM’s prior to elections, test them after the elections or eliminate their use altogether. None of these options will likely result in verifiable election “results”. The only time our votes need to be counted correctly is during our elections. So why not verify that our votes are being counted correctly during our elections? If we can do this we then have a correct answer to the problems we are having with fraudulent election “results”.

As they are being used now EVM’s are a big part of the problem. That is so because the corrupt people who control our elections are taking advantage of the weaknesses of the EVM’s rather than taking advantage of their strengths. We are already using EVM’s that can memorize every vote cast. Why not have them remember where that vote came from as well? They can very easily do so if we want them to. Then everybody could check to see that their vote was really and truly counted as cast. For the purpose of keeping the vote secret every voter could be given a uniquely numbered receipt of their selections. A second copy of that uniquely numbered ballot could be securely stored by each precinct in case a recount was needed. Before leaving the polling place the voter could verify that the receipts were both correct. The machine could easily order all the ballots it memorized in order of the unique numbers they were assigned. It could publish that list on the internet and elsewhere so that those who want to know if their votes were counted as cast could check and see if they were. If nobody can find any discrepancies the votes were clearly counted as cast. If we also insure that extra ballots were not added to control the “results”, then we arrive at verified voting. That is somewhere that we may never have visited before.

There should rarely be any errors found if the EVM’s are really trying to get the count correct. Therefore if any candidate can demonstrate that there is less than 99.9% accuracy in the published list a recount is clearly required. The EVM’s have clearly failed badly if this does happen anyway. Therefore, the cost of a hand count of the receipts the precinct secured must be covered by the company that contracted the counting. The outcome of this monitored recount determines the winner of the election.

It is not that difficult to get to where we want to go if verified voting is our goal. The big PROBLEM we have left to solve is that those who have been controlling the outcomes of our elections don’t want to venture anywhere near verified voting. We will never be a democracy again if we do not solve this big PROBLEM!

First off, I'm back, but not for long... just to get off one blast.

Wow, Brad, I"m impressed. You may have finally come around as you didn't list Clint Curtis in your "shouldn't concede" list. Although Curtis lost by a wide margin in a right-leaning district in which the 2 biggest newspapers, Orlando Sentinel and Florida Today, as well as the liberal Orlando Weekly, all dismissed him as a quack, he says he's going to forensically reconstruct the vote because there were improprieties. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you're not going to get a lot of votes, or in this case, enough, when no one takes you seriously. It's surprising he fared as well as he did, although there are obviously a lot of pissed off people out there. He questions why more republican votes were cast in some areas where there were less registered republicans. Well, all you have to do is read the newspapers and see what the alternative was. Busby it appears has conceded, and to top it all off, George Allen, trailing by a hair, conceded too. You know it and I know it: Curtis was going to contest the vote and strike up some conspiracy come hell or high water, whether it was 58-42, 90-10, or 100-0. And if anyone thinks he recorded anywhere near enough votes on his website or that one 400-person poll 2 weeks ago means that he was cheated, they need their head examined. I guess it's kind of like one of those scary sci-fi movies. Crazy doctor creates what he thinks is a miracle, instead it turns around and is a monster that devastates humanity. That's what I guess happened to him and his vote rigging software. It turned around and bit him in the butt. I guess he's got no one to blame but himself.

Stay tuned, we all know, like cockroaches, he's not going anywhere. However, as time goes by, even the most deranged will come to see that he's a total fraud.

Re: Allen conceding, James Baker said yesterday that it was over, and Baker knows a thing or two about stealing elections. So when Baker said it was over, it was OVER! Even with all of the "irregularities" in the Virginia vote, Allen was not able to prevail, and Baker and the Bush bunch did not want too close an examination of that vote. Why make a bad situation worse is their thinking...

The older I get, I cannot stand "liars, hypocrites, and bullshitters"...and "Answer Man"?

YOU ARE A BIG FAT LIAR AND BULLSHITTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

And a big fat loser in the last election!

I'll go one further:

YOU ARE OUT TO STOP CLINT'S RECONSTRUCTION AND YOU ARE A SHILL/MISINFORMER WHO IS AFRAID OF WHAT IT WILL UNCOVER! Nice try, you on the wrong website???

GET LOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Pennsylvania, there is an investigation of fraudulent phone calls and fraudulent reports of machines flipping votes, all worded exactly the same-clearly the work of "the architect". Sometimes "we wuz robbed", means, "lets try to convince the gullible that the we wuz robbed, even though we know it's a lie".