House GOPer Virgil Goode Refuses To Go Quietly, Demands Recount
Here's one Republican Congressman who just won't give up, no matter how long the odds.
A source close to Rep. Virgil Goode -- the colorful Virginia Republican best known for fiercely denouncing the 2006 election of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as the first Muslim member of Congress -- tells Election Central that Goode will call for a recount at a press conference set to begin shortly, after the state elections board today certified a 745-vote margin of victory for Dem opponent Tom Perriello.
The final numbers: Perriello 158,712 votes, Goode 157,967.
Goode is fully entitled to a state-paid recount under Virginia law, but the chance of success seems very slim to say the least, given the number of votes cast in this race and the size of Perriello's lead. Relatively speaking, this would be as if Al Franken had gone into the Minnesota recount trailing Norm Coleman by over 7,000 votes, instead of Coleman's shaky 215-vote lead.
Late Update: The Goode campaign has made it official, announcing in a press release that he is seeking a recount.
And, virginia has electronic voting, so all they do is look at the printouts again. It really is a waste of time in virginia, as allen found out in his senate run. What a whiner.
November 24, 2008 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Virginia started moving to paper ballots this year, and in the long run, the electronic machines will only be used for voters with visual and other handicaps. I don't know what the mix is like in that district, but in my area the majority of votes were cast on paper ballots.
However, recount laws in Virginia are still pretty restrictive, and actually challenging any ballots requires convincing a court that there is evidence of misconduct or incompetence in specific precincts, so you are still correct about his chances for success.
November 24, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, my bad. I was going from 06, I don't live there so I didn't know. It's good that va is going back to paper in any event. Those electronic voting machines are pathetic.
November 24, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is his right. More power to him. If he loses the recount the gravy train of the Republican back bench will be over and he will have to take up an honest line of work.
November 24, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, this makes me so very happy. This defeat couldn't happen to a more deserving person.
November 24, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Virgil knows his his God, the God of his stack of Old Testament Comics will save him!
November 24, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it possible that ole Virg doesn't like the result simply because it was written in Arabic numerals?
Inquiring minds want to know.
November 24, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not surprised Goode is taking one last opportunity to spend taxpayer money to benefit himself.
November 24, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
A statistical nit-pick:
For a binomial distribution, the expected deviation is going to scale as the square root of n and not linearly in n. So, since there were 2.4 million votes cast for Franken/Coleman vs. about 320,000 votes cast for Periello/Goode, or about 7.5 times as many, the expected vote difference (assuming p=0.5, a bad assumption which Nate Silver talks quite a bit about) would be only sqrt(7.5) times as much. So, instead of it being like a 7,000 vote difference, it'd be more like there being a 2,000 vote difference.
November 24, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
He wants a recount! And a car that gets really sh**ty gas mileage!
November 24, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
As it happens, I just saw RoboCop again a couple of days ago.
Give the man keys to his free 6000 SUX.
November 24, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans amaze me. The are so self deluded that they think they can break any rule they please. But go ahead, let this oaf spend so much time and then he will indeed have to face up to his loss. Only a Republican like this guy should be so self centered when the race results were not even that close. Oh well, a Republican. What else can we expect.
mJJ
November 24, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not really good sports about this, these people are.
In related news, Marilyn Musgrave still hasn't conceded in her race either.
November 24, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those readers who aren't Virginians, it's worth mentioning that the state's election system is pretty good -- not perfect, mind you, but on the whole Virginia's election officials are dedicated, conscientious people. Goode's decision to request the recount may have something to do with the many anomalies introduced by the state's new, and controversial, election database system, called VERTIS, which scrambled some of the returns, so don't be so quick to assume that his actions testify to some deep, underlying character flaw or anything having to do with Republican ideology. Any reasonable person would have questions about the tally that was certified today. Still, I'm satisfied that our election officials caught the errors and corrected them in accordance with the verifiable numbers they were seeing. I expect the recount to prove Tom Perriello's election to the United States Congress.
November 24, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
OMG, how many times do we have to say we want to be rid of you. Go away with some dignity, oh that's right, you have none, you cur! You made your bed now accept it. How do you feel about Al Franken/Norm Coleman recount? Yeah, I bet!
November 25, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink