Votes still being counted in House races

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Ten days after Election Day, the outcome is still in dispute in a handful of close contests for the House as election officials count and recount ballots from absentee voters and those who were challenged at the polls.


Ten days after Election Day, the outcome is still in dispute in a handful of close contests for the House as election officials count and recount ballots from absentee voters and those who were challenged at the polls.

A North Carolina recount was expected to wrap up Wednesday, and a dispute in Ohio over a new voter identification law will delay results in one race until past Thanksgiving weekend.

Elections in Louisiana and Texas will go to runoffs in December.

And in Florida, a judge is holding hearings over ballots used by electronic voting machines that recorded a much higher number of undervotes in the close contest to replace GOP Rep. Katherine Harris (news, bio, voting record). The Associated Press called that race for Republican Vern Buchanan.

The outcome of these races won't give Republicans a new chance to take back the majority in Congress that Democrats won Election Day, since Democrats have too big a margin of control. And most of the races are in seats already held by the GOP.

Right now, Democrats hold 232 seats and Republicans hold 199 seats — excluding four House seats where the outcome is uncalled (and not the Louisiana runoff, since it will remain Democrat regardless of who wins).

Late Friday, elections officials in New Mexico's 1st District released an unofficial tally showing that Republican Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record) won her race against Democrat Patricia Madrid by a margin of 879 votes out of more than 210,000 cast.

Still to be called are:

• North Carolina, 8th District: Rep. Robin Hayes (news, bio, voting record), a Republican, led Democrat Larry Kissell by 339 votes after results were certified by county election boards Friday night. Kissell asked for a recount, which officials said would begin next week and conclude by Wednesday.

• Ohio, 2nd District: Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Republican who called decorated Vietnam veteran Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record) a coward, was ahead of Democrat Victoria Wulsin by about 2,800 votes. Workers were to begin counting as many as 10,000 provisional and absentee ballots next week.

• Ohio, 15th District: Rep. Deborah Pryce (news, bio, voting record), a member of the House Republican leadership, leads Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,536 votes. Thousands of provisional ballots need to be recounted, but results won't be announced until Nov. 27 because of a dispute over a new voter identification law.

In addition, runoffs will pick the officeholder in Louisiana, where Democratic Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), the subject of an FBI bribery investigation, will face fellow Democrat Karen Carter in a Dec. 9 runoff; and in Texas, where GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla (news, bio, voting record) will face Democratic former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (news, bio, voting record) in a yet-unscheduled runoff to happen no sooner than Dec. 12.

In North Carolina, attorneys for Hayes — a four-term congressman who found himself in a much closer race with Kissell, a schoolteacher — had petitioned to have most provisional ballots thrown out because of missing signatures, Social Security numbers or other mistakes. Provisional ballots are filled out by voters whose names do not show up on precinct rolls on Election Day, and Democrats are counting on those votes to erase Hayes' margin.

In the Florida contest to replace GOP Rep. Katherine Harris, The Associated Press called the race for Republican Vern Buchanan. But the state has yet to certify he was the winner, with unofficial votes showing him ahead of Democrat Christine Jennings by less than 400 votes after a manual recount.

A judge is holding hearings in Sarasota County, where touch-screen voting machines recorded that 13 percent of voters did not choose either Buchanan or Jennings, despite casting ballots in other races on the ballot. That rate was much higher than other counties in the district.