Doug Hoffman

Tales of Hoffman: Finale

Election officials upstate aren’t letting Hoffman define his own reality:

According to [Oswego Democratic elections commissioner Bill] Scriber, there were problems with the phone system on the night of the election that led to the delay in the results being posted online, but the idea of tampering is preposterous.

“I guess Mr. Hoffman is totally ignorant of the process in New York state and how local boards operate,” Scriber said. “No votes changed from election night, to election morning, to the day after, right up to today.”

The commissioner added that he believes that Hoffman owes the Oswego County Board of Elections and the staff an apology for his comments in the letter.

“This statement is so absolutely fictitious and false that I don’t know where to begin,” Scriber said. “It was such an irresponsible statement, I don’t know anybody other than Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh  that would believe it.”

Scriber added that Hoffman or one of his representatives had a legal right to be present during the vote and re-canvassing process.

“He was given notice from this board, and invited during our audit of the voting machines and our re-canvassing and counting of the absentees and affidavits,” Scriber said. “But right now, I don’t see anybody from the Hoffman campaign.”

The last bit is unforgivable, especially for a candidate making an allegation as serious as voter fraud. New York has long provided candidates the chance to witness the canvass or re-canvass of voting machines, and with the addition of paper ballots, the pilot program added the option for candidates to witness rigorous testing of the voting machines’ logic and accuracy, to ensure voter and campaign confidence in the process. That Hoffman participated in neither demonstrates, once and for all, that he prefers spouting conspiracy theories to actually living a fact-based, responsible political life. This is what happens when you choose Glenn Beck as a mentor.

Let’s hope Commissioner Scriber gets the apology he’s hoping for. In the meantime, Hoffman is done, and good riddance.

Hoffman Loses; Turns to Fanning Voting Machine Paranoia

Conspiracy theories: a good reason not to put Glenn Beck's candidates in the national spotlight.

With  3,072 ballots left uncounted, Owens still leads — by 3,105 votes. Odds for Hoffman’s victory have moved from 1% down to 0%.

However, Hoffman looks to be gearing up to challenge the election results, linking from his website to an article in the Gouverneur Times, which suggests that voting machines were either infected with a virus or, due to the presence of USB ports, capable of hijacking on-site. Although the Watertown Daily Times has already partially debunked these rumors, they deserve a second treatment, for clarity’s sake.

Counties in New York currently use one of four voting machines — either Shoup or AVM “Lever” machines (collectively, “levers”), or one of two optical scanners, the Sequoia ImageCast, and the ES&S DS200. The latter are required by federal law — when, in 2005, New York accepted money pursuant to the Help America Vote Act, it committed to abandoning its lever machines, but the state substantially failed to implement HAVA until recently (read more here). This year, as part of a “pilot program,” 46 New York counties deployed optical scanners for their primary and general elections, including all counties in the 23rd Congressional district except Clinton, Essex, and part of Oneida. All NY-23 counties participating in the pilot program use the Sequoia ImageCast.

It’s true that many of the counties experienced, at some point in time, problems with their Sequoia machines. But no problems persisted through election day. Here’s how we know. Because their deployment is at this time experimental, electronic voting machines are governed by strict proposed regulations, treated as effective for the purposes of the pilot program. These procedures require that commissioners confirm the accuracy of all of their machines’ logic with a “test deck” of ballots FOUR TIMES (before and after their deployment, and before and after canvassing) (§ 6209). Any “virus” would be caught instantly, and any that slipped through the cracks would be caught by another regulation that escalates the statutory 3% audit requirement (N.Y. Elec. Law § 9-211) to a much higher level, and provides for further escalation if problems are encountered (§ 6210). So much for viruses.

Concerns about electronic “hacking” or ballot tampering are similarly misplaced, because both would have to happen to defeat audit/test deck procedures, and neither can happen. Even if Sequoia machines do have a USB port (I’ve never seen one), the machines go from locked facilities at the County Board, where they’re under bipartisan lock & key, to a polling site where they’re in public view, and then back to the bipartisan County Board. Tampering would have to be sanctioned by both Republican and Democratic election commissioners, and then overlooked by campaign observers, who are permitted and encouraged to be present at canvassing. Chain of custody procedures for paper ballots, if separated from their machines, are even more rigorous (§ 6210.11).

Further, much like a Battlestar, voting machines are NEVER NETWORKED. EVER. Voting cards are programmed by an Election Management System subject to the same lock & key procedures, and bereft of any internet connectivity software or hardware.

All of this is to say Hoffman enters any prospective recount with the burden of proof stacked against him. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you see an election commissioner worry, then worry. But even the conspiratorial Gouverneur Times notes that the commissioners aren’t on their side — though they mask their lack of evidence with weasel words (“Republican Commissioner Judith Peck refused to speculate…”). For shame, Gouverneur Times — the press shouldn’t be in the business of spreading paranoia, or feeding the rumors of a madman.

Hoffman’s NY-23 Spin: Bad on Facts, Worse on Presentation

Though the election is over, and the news on the absentee ballot count is going from bad to worse for Hoffman, his spin machine is apparently just starting. From Hoffman’s campaign site:

As evidence surfaces, we find out that reported results from election night were far from accurate. ACORN and the unions did their best to try and sway the results to Obamacare supporter Bill Owens.

I was forced to concede after receiving two pieces of grim news – - down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night – and barely won my stronghold in Oswego County. On Election Night, the information we received was far different from what we received this week! [. . .]

Let’s force them keep this recanvassing active! Let’s give this election a chance to end differently!
Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on “chaos“ in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up, and on inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. This sounds like a tactic right from the ACORN playbook.

The second paragraph conceals a very important distortion: as we have explained, Oswego’s election night report that Hoffman won the county narrowly, with 93% of the vote reporting, was quite accurate. What Hoffman should have known, but didn’t bother to investigate, was that the remaining 7% of the vote was likely to bolster his numbers substantially. The fault in Oswego is not with the elections commissioners, but with Hoffman’s failure to follow through on his own election. Jefferson County is another story: there the problem was real, the fault was with the commissioners, and the delayed returns may have prejudiced Hoffman’s decision to concede. But, “no harm, no foul”: Jefferson’s numbers were corrected the very next day, and though the corrections flipped the county to Hoffman, they didn’t change the district-wide outcome. The notion that this is somehow a new story as of last week is absurd.

So much for the factual allegations. What’s really concerning is Hoffman’s presentation: the page on which this impassioned plea resides is entitled, “Stop another stolen election!” Ahem: “another”? What, pray tell, was the first stolen election? Is Hoffman saying the “Obama Regime” somehow stole the 2008 race? [Update: yes.]

And then there’s the postscript:

P.S. I ran a different kind of campaign, one where Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party and 9/12 activists rallied around. ACORN, the unions and Democratic Party were scared, and that’s why they tampered with the ballots of voters in NY-23.

First commenter to spot all the grammar errors gets a prize. Hoffman may have gained votes since November 3rd, but he’s steadily losing his already-tenuous grasp on reality.

Hoffman “Unconcedes” NY-23 Race Just in Time to Concede Again

Except, no.

Wonkette and The Hill are reporting he’ll “unconcede” — as he promised Glenn Beck — but apparently a promise to Glenn Beck means about as much as an election-night concession. Local sources, closer to the story and the players, report that Hoffman is not contesting the count of absentee ballots, meaning he’s also likely not deploying observers to watch the canvass returns, a right that candidates enjoy (and uniformly exercise) pursuant to New York election law.

As a reminder, the Palladium Times, the only newspaper that’s managed to get the story right, explained that phone problems delayed returns in Oswego County, causing nine election districts (out of 125) to fail to report until the next day, by which time Hoffman had already conceded. Similarly, human error caused Hoffman to under-perform in Jefferson County by about 1,000 votes. The error wasn’t discovered until the next day.

Critically, at least in Oswego County, what’s become the epicenter of the controversy, at all times after 10:30 PM on election night, 1.5 hours after close of polls, all public data on the returns were accurate: had Hoffman called the Oswego Board of Elections, he would’ve been informed of the exact state of the count, that nine election districts weren’t yet in, and that the vote totals would rise by 2,000+ votes once they were. The notion that outside forces somehow conspired to trick Hoffman into conceding has no basis in the facts. He simply wasn’t a responsible candidate.

The Hill gets one thing right, though — Hoffman would have to win 65-70% of the absentee ballots to carry the election and displace Owens. Since the race was a three-way contest until three days before the election, and Hoffman’s surge didn’t happen until four days before, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll win anything close to that.

UDPATE: by the way, for those curious, a “concession” has no legal effect in New York, nor does a “suspension of one’s campaign” (what Assemblywoman Scozzafava did). The only authorities on who “won” a race are the County Board(s) of Elections responsible for the race, working in conjunction with the N.Y. State Board of Elections. A despondent, “resigned” candidate can still be dragged kicking and screaming into office if they won the vote.

Critically, no election results have been certified, nor has any New York authority represented its results as certified. The State Board delivered an unofficial certification to the Clerk of the House in advance of Owen’s swearing in, carefully noting the result was not yet official. The Gouverneur Times gets that right, but dishonestly suggests Owens is occupying his office illegally. He’s not. At the time of his swearing-in, the race was uncontested: an impound order on voting machines is NOT an official, Article 16 challenge to election results. I haven’t been able to get a copy of the complaint ordering the impound of voting machines, but the judge’s order to that effect does not style itself as an Article 16 order. Cf. N.Y. Elec. Law, § 16-112 (McKinney 2008).

Two weeks out, official certification is still pending. Because New York is testing out new voting machines for the first time this year, the official canvass has just begun, following a thorough audit of the new machines that lasted until, likely, today. We’ll be keeping our eyes on the situation, but only to dispel rumors about the way the law works up here. There’s literally a 0% chance Hoffman will win this thing.

Reality Check on NY-23: It’s NOT That Bad

Despite a number of reports currently circulating about New York’s special election in 23rd Congressional District, some of which suggest the very real possibility that Doug Hoffman could yet win the seat he’s conceded, the situation is, in fact, nowhere near that bad.

To begin, while the number of uncounted absentee ballots are more than double Bill Owens’ margin of victory, Hoffman would have to win 70% of the uncounted ballots to catch up, a possibility that’s extremely unlikely, as most absentee ballots were cast when Dede Scozzafava was not just a viable candidate, but THE viable candidate.

Further, some reports have blamed the narrowing race on misconduct or human error in the affected boards of elections (Oswego, Jefferson). This is also incorrect. No county board has yet certified a winner in its county in the 23rd District; the Hoffman campaign’s decision to concede was based on unofficial numbers openly noted as incomplete by both boards. Hoffman’s decision rely on preliminary figures was perhaps unwise. But, it won’t matter anyways.

Market Saturation & Turnout

Six Bloomberg mailers. In one week.

Despite what was, to outside observers like myself, a “sexy” election, Tuesday’s special congressional election in New York’s 23rd district drew below-average turnout. Why? One thought:

While visiting the area, I heard two candidate ads on a local radio station in the space of 15 minutes. Both pushed the limits of decency. I talked to voters who left for work at 8:30 in the morning, and came home at 5:30 to seven voice mail messages — all candidate robocalls. The perception that Doug Hoffman was responsible for bringing this hellfire down on the 23rd district was palpable, unequivocally correct, and likely contributed to his loss, with overall turnout suffering in kind.

Thanks to newly re-elected Mayor Bloomberg, who also had a harder election night than he expected, citizens of the Five Boroughs will understand the sentiment (see above). Well-armed politicians should take note.

To New York Conservatives, Abortion is a Litmus Test

Except when it isn’t. One district over from the epicenter of Tuesday’s contentious special election, in the 24th, functionaries in both the Republican and Conservative parties will embrace pro-choice Republican Richard Hanna, who narrowly lost last year’s race, if he runs again in 2010.

There are a couple of ways to read that. Either Dede Scozzafava’s support for gay marriage is what broke her Conservative support, the 24th is more liberal and thus requires a lighter touch, or party officials are already re-evaluating their RINO-hunting strategy. I doubt it’s the latter, but man can dream.

Also, congratulations to all who passed the New York bar exam — including yours truly!

Tales of Hoffman: Electability

At the end of the line, he just didn’t have it. Bill Owens, and the national Democratic leadership, dealt a serious blow to the political wing of the “tea party” movement, and probably killed whatever nascent influence on reality Glenn Beck was developing. Apparently, although he and the Republican Party can drive debate on polemical half-issues, they can’t win elections on them, even in districts Republicans have held since the 19th century.

Whatever else comes out of tonight’s elections, we can be content in that knowledge, and remind ourselves that Creigh Deeds is NOT an Obama proxy. Really, reading Deeds’ loss as a rejection of Obama would be like blaming Gen. McClellan’s abysmal Civil War generalship on President Lincoln. You go into a campaign with the nominee you have, not the one you want.

And, N.B. to Erick Erickson at RedState: deploying your entire party infrastructure to destroy a popular member of your own party, and then failing to capitalize on it, is the very definition of defeat.

N.B. – The last clause of the first paragraph was added late. – Ed.

Democracy In New York

As the sun rises on another election day — at least, here in New York, it’s election day — we should set aside our differences for a moment, and reflect on the incredible ease with which these days come. Not every nation is so lucky, but then again, we’ve fought for the right to expect such privileges. Before you go to the polls, take a moment to reflect on our good fortune, and cast your ballot with an eye towards its enduring renewal.

Now. Let’s go beat Doug Hoffman. I’m upstate, intermittently in the 23rd, but in a non-partisan capacity. More, I cannot say. Please, someone, pick up the slack!

Go Right, Young Man, and Grow Up With the Country

Among conservatives, there persists a wisdom that the solution for their electoral woes lies to the right, not the left. Clearer, cogently articulated partisanship is the solution, not moderation.

That may yet work in Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district, where right-wing activists traded a winning moderate for a winning extreme right-winger, but we must stress that that’s all they did. If Democratic candidate Bill Owens loses on Tuesday, it will be because he was always at a disadvantage, not because switching from a moderate Republican to an extremist somehow re-energized the base. Simply put, if militant right-winger Doug Hoffman wins on Tuesday, it will only prove that, in majority Republican districts, the party base will tolerate extremists. But that’s neither encouraging, nor capable of generalization to a nation that, on the whole, remains far to the left of people like Hoffman and Glenn Beck, his muse.

Should worst come to worst, and Doug Hoffman be the first Tea Party “Patriot” Congressman, it will not alter the fundamental reality that the Republicans need to embrace moderation before they can start winning again. As recent history illustrates, no American political party has ever found its way out of the wilderness by becoming more extreme. Reagan was more temperate and comforting than Goldwater; Clinton leveraged his Southern identity to supplement his moderate credentials; Obama avoids culture war issues or redefines them to his advantage; and, in England, Tony Blair jettisoned Labour’s socialist elements. But it just might convince the Republicans to move right for 2010, and surrender a few seats that could otherwise be theirs.