Recounts, run-offs to mark races in 2006 (Prediction?)

[MelissaB]

Recounts, run-offs to mark races in 2006

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
Mon Sep 25, 4:16 PM ET

WASHINGTON - It's Nov. 8, the day after the election. The costliest and nastiest campaign for control of the House in history is .... not yet over.

Instead, in this hypothetical case, both parties are short of the 218 seats needed to guarantee control. The outcome will be decided by run-off elections in Louisiana and Texas, recounts in a half-dozen races that are too close to call and perhaps a party switch or two.

Unprecedented? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely not, given an era of polarization that has produced a presidential election so close the Supreme Court had to settle it, and a 50-50 tie in the Senate.

"It means that all of your focus and energy will be on trying to get to 218 in two ways," said Steve Elmendorf, who was chief of staff to Dick Gephardt, former Democratic leader. "One, in recounts and trying to make sure you're throwing every legal strategy and lawyer you can find into try and win the recounts.



More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060925/ap_on_el_ho/the_winner_is_1

[datadiva]

1. One word, fiasco nt/

[rumpel]

2. tollay agree - but

not because of "polarization"

it's the systems - machines - and the people that are finding ways to circumvent the people's will, as we have seen in CA-50