Posted on 11/08/2006 3:01:35 PM PST by george76
Defeated U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., refused to concede Wednesday saying there remain votes yet to be counted in his tight race against the declared winner, Democrat Jon Tester.
Burns, who has not commented to reporters on the race since the votes were counted Tuesday night, released a statement at 1:47 p.m.
“Jon Tester ran a good race and has the lead right now, but it is extremely close,” Burns said. “The state of Montana has a process in place, and it is our obligation to see it through. There are still votes out there that deserve to be counted.
“I believe we need to continue to let that process play itself out, and there is no need to rush to a conclusion when votes are this close.”
As of mid-afternoon Wednesday, the unofficial vote count showed Tester with a 2,847-vote lead, with all 867 precincts reporting. Here were the totals:
- Tester, 198,302 votes, for 49.1 percent.
- Burns, 195,455 votes for 48.4 percent.
- Stan Jones, Libertarian, 10,324 votes for 2.6 percent.
Only two kinds of ballots had yet to be counted Wednesday afternoon, said Bowen Greenwood, a spokesman for Secretary of State Brad Johnson.
People who went to the polls Tuesday, but forgot to bring some kind of identification, were able to cast provisional ballots.
Those ballots will only be counted if the voter returns today with proper identification by 5 p.m. Wednesday. Greenwood estimated that about 1,000 provisional ballots were cast Tuesday.
Also, the office will continue to count ballots coming in from Montanans serving in the military overseas for a few days after the election.
Greenwood said it was impossible to know how many of those may come in.
(Excerpt) Read more at missoulian.com ...
Military ballots not counted.
Burns should follow the Dems' playbook: keep counting the ballots until you win!
Special thanks to the Libertarians there - dyfunctional and destructive as ever.
" Military ballots not counted."
How special....actually counting the military ballots.
Have the other 20,000+ absentee ballots been counted yet? If not, it ain't over.
She must be a democrat...
Where are the dhimmicrats' cries of "Count All the Votes"?
How many Montanans are in the military? More than 3000?
Good for him. They should all hold off and insist the ballots be checked IMO. The Dems can scream sore loser to the hills, all they want. I"m not saying republicans didn"t lose but something smells.
In theory most military ballots should have been counted, they're just accepting later ones.
Brad Johnson, Montana's secretary of state, which oversees elections in Montana...
Those figures show Tester with a slim 2,848 vote lead over Burns...
Montana law allows for voter re-counts in certain situations.
In this case, the state itself would have launched and paid for a re-count if the margin between Tester and Burns fell below about 1,000 votes.
Burns could have petitioned for a recount and potentially paid the cost of it if the margin between the two fell below about 2,000 votes, Johnson said.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/11/08/helena/000aamargine.txt
" How many Montanans are in the military? More than 3000?"
Great example of retardation where throwing away the vote to a third party gets you the fire breathing communist Democrat.
Once upon a time you knew by daybreak who won. I'm so tired of this. Election day/April 15. 2 days in a year I dread.
Like voting for Perot to punish Bush 41..then we got Clinton.
.
Which was mentioned by me for months here to all the third party types.
How many Montanans are in the military? More than 3000?
From the linked article; "As of September, state records showed just 14 members of the Montana Air and Army National Guard deployed overseas.
It was unclear at press time how many Montanans who enlisted in the regular armed services might have cast ballots and if they would cast their ballots in Montana or another state."
Montana's population is relatively small.
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