It does not take a rocket scientist to question the validity of the vote counts and procedural handling of the New York 23rd Congressional District race between Doug Hoffman and Bill Owens. Nancy Pelosi conveniently certified Owens as the winner and then Owens voted for the House version of the Health Care Bill.
Now Hoffman is accusing ACORN, the Democrats and unions of tampering with the vote counts.
“Hoffman: ACORN, unions, Dems tampered with NY-23 election”
“With his prospect of winning the 23rd Congressional District race now almost zero, Conservative Party candidate Douglas L. Hoffman suggested Wednesday in a letter that “ACORN, the unions and the Democratic Party” “tampered” with results to deny him victory.
Mr. Hoffman provided no evidence to support his claims, but asked fellow conservatives to send donations his way to “ensure every vote is counted.”
Jerry O. Eaton, Jefferson County Republican elections commissioner, called Mr. Hoffman’s assertion “absolutely false.”
“No one has touched those ballots or has access to those ballots except board of elections staff – and in a bipartisan manner,” he said.
Mr. Hoffman trails Rep. William L. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, by 2,832 votes after 42.6 percent of absentee ballots districtwide were reported Wednesday. Officials are expected to count the 4,262 ballots remaining by Monday.
Mr. Hoffman told conservatives he was “forced to concede” on election night after learning he trailed by 5,335 votes and that he “barely won” his “stronghold in Oswego County.”
Oswego County did not have full results on election night because of what William W. Scriber, a Democratic elections commissioner there, called a “perfect storm” of problems. He said the elections board had assigned staffers to take results for specific districts, but the phone system redirected poll workers’ calls to the wrong people.
Mr. Scriber said the board decided to close its public reporting system early – with nine districts still unreported – as a safeguard.”
“Mr. Hoffman lead Oswego County by 500 votes when elections officials stopped taking results. When elections officials recanvassed the machine vote, the candidate’s lead was upgraded to 1,748.
Mr. Hoffman said the “phone system foul-up” and “inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results” “sounds like a tactic right from the ACORN playbook.””
Read more:
http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20091118/BLOGS09/911189972
Citizen WElls 