The morning after Election Day in 2008, Norm Coleman faced a tough question from reporter Curt Brown of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “If you were down by 725 [votes], would you say forget it and save the taxpayers’ money?”
It is a question no candidate slightly ahead of a competitor wants to answer. Although the public accepts election totals as they come in on election night as an accurate representation of the truth, such numbers are usually wrong and almost always incomplete. In the rush to get everything done on election night, election officials sometimes misreport numbers or, as we saw in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, even forget to report totals from entire towns. It takes days for officials to verify and recheck the numbers. Many states also have absentee ballots to process and count, and now, in part thanks to the Help America Vote Act, there are often piles of provisional ballots to consider. When the apparent winner is ahead by thousands of votes in a statewide race, and Election Day comes and goes with no reports of widespread problems or irregularities, it is usually safe for candidates to expect that the outcome will not change. Election officials then certify the results weeks later. But when the margin is closer, candidates concede or declare victory at their peril.
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