Democrat Loser Won't Concede

These people are really pathetic. When Republicans win, it's malfunctioning ballots, stolen elections, rigged machines, stupid people unable to properly punch a chad, whatever. When Democrats win, Republicans just accept reality and move on. Like adults usually do. But the Democrats? Never. They just don't quit and accept reality. Yet another reason why I loathe them.

Byron York brings us the curious case from the 13th District in Florida, which just happens to be the seat relinquished by Katherine Harris.

Do you remember the Election Crisis of 2006? In the weeks before November 7, Democrats laid the groundwork for widespread legal challenges to voting results, readying themselves to find irregularities, voter suppression, and outright fraud in precincts across America. Activists on the left established hotlines — call 866-OUR-VOTE! — and assembled platoons of volunteer lawyers. This time, they vowed, Republicans would not get away with stealing an election.

And then Democrats won. The hotlines went quiet. The lawyers went back to work. The crisis went away.

Which left some Capitol Hill Republicans who have worked with Democrats on so-called “election reform” issues feeling a little, well, cynical. “If they lose, they assume something is wrong with the system,” says one top Senate aide. “We lose, we say we lost. We’re not going to court. Had the shoe been on the other foot, they would have been suing until the end of time.”

As it turns out, however, there is one case in which Democrats are suing, at least for now. And even though it appears they are flat wrong about the facts of the case, their objections raise serious questions that need to be resolved before 2008.

The case involves the House race in Florida’s 13th Congressional District. Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings ran neck-and-neck throughout the campaign, and when it was all over on Election Night, Buchanan led Jennings by 364 votes out of about 238,000 votes cast.

Complicating the matter was the fact that there were about 18,000 undervotes in the race — that is, ballots in which voters cast their vote in other contests but did not vote in the Buchanan-Jennings race. Now, there is no requirement that a person vote in every race; voters can skip any race they choose. And undervotes are nothing new in the 13th District: In a previous House race, there had been 12,000 undervotes. Still, 18,000 was an unusually high number. And they were concentrated in one place — Sarasota County — although the district includes parts of five counties.

Read it all. With any luck, perhaps now that the Democrats are in leadership positions, they might grow up and act responsibly. But I doubt it. They're Democrats, after all.