The Orlando Sentinel reports: The Federal Election Commission has dropped a long-standing investigation of Sen. Mel Martinez after finding no evidence that the Florida Republican illegally coordinated 2004 political ads with President Bush.

The decision ends a two-year inquiry into allegations that Martinez helped Bush's re-election bid by using the same advertising firm to synchronize TV and radio commercials -- a violation of election law.

But the FEC ruled the commercials were not part of a coordinated campaign to help both candidates. It also found the firm, Washington-based Stevens & Schriefer Group, adequately separated the accounts to prevent collusion.

Advertising for the two campaigns had "insufficient similarity to raise even an inference of coordination," according to agency records. The Martinez campaign was told of the ruling in mid-October; the full case file became public record this month. -- Feds drop probe of Martinez ads - Orlando Sentinel : State News Feds drop probe of Martinez ads - Orlando Sentinel : State News

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AP reports: The Federal Election Commission on Thursday took steps to encourage politicians and contributors to report their own possible violations of campaign finance laws by offering them significantly reduced fines.

Commission officials said the number of self-reported violations has increased recently, prompting the need for a specific policy that spells out how the FEC will dispose of such cases. ...

Before fully adopting the policy, the commission has asked for public comment on the proposal by Jan. 29.

The proposal contains two penalty recommendations for violators who voluntarily blow the whistle on themselves. One would reduce civil penalties by 50 to 75 percent of standard fines, depending on the steps taken to report and correct the violation. Another would set the reduction at 50 percent, but give the commission leeway to lower or increase the discount based on mitigating factors. -- Feds ask: Blow the whistle on yourself - Yahoo! News

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Josh Glasstetter of People for the American Way emails: We've gone through the video of the 11/16 hearing that People For the American Way Foundation and others held in Sarasota for FL-13 voters to go public with the problems they faced with voting machines and posted some of the best testimony online.

They put a human face on the problem that led over 18,000 people in Sarasota County (and 21,000 in all of FL-13) to leave the voting booth without having their vote in the congressional race counted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC6zuT5VTqs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOtpen7zzS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoFMdxuhZyU

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports: Many Park City residents say they have more in common with Salt Lake City voters 35 miles to the west than their neighbors in Kamas, 10 miles to the east.

In recognition of that reality, legislative members of a state Redistricting Committee relaxed their dedication to mixing rural and urban Utah neighborhoods in four proposed congressional districts enough to create a purely urban district Wednesday.

Lawmakers approved a single map that links northern Salt Lake County with the Snyderville Basin and Park City in a new 2nd Congressional District. The remaining three districts will blend urban parts of the Wasatch Front with more rural communities to the north, east and south. -- Salt Lake Tribune - Final map a result of major give and take

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The Concord Monitor reports: In a preliminary ruling on the Election Day 2002 phone-jamming lawsuit, a judge yesterday denied a request from Republicans to restrict the potential damages awarded Democrats to the dollar cost of the lost phone service.

The civil suit related to the phone-jamming is scheduled to begin Monday in Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester. State Democrats have asked the court to award them up to $4.1 million for the damages associated with a Republican program to block Democratic phone banks in New Hampshire to thwart the party's get-out-the-vote effort.

The defendants - a group that includes the state Republican Party, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee - filed a motion to exclude evidence beyond the phone-system damages and restrict the potential award to less than $5,000, which they calculated as the value of the lost phone lines. Republicans said they blocked 13 Democratic phone lines for 82 minutes before they called off the illegal program.

Judge Philip Mangones, who will hear the case, ruled yesterday that the Democrats may seek greater damages and present evidence to argue that the phone jamming compromised Election Day activities for which the party had spent months planning. However, he also suggested that it would be improbable for the Democrats to recover a multimillion-dollar award. -- Concord Monitor Online Article - GOP denied in phone-jam case - Your News Source - 03301

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AP reports: Texas is asking the Justice Department to approve Dec. 12 for a congressional runoff election, a date that a Latino group opposes in part because it is an important religious day for many Hispanics.

Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla and former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, are in a runoff for the 23rd Congressional District, which was redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the old district map discriminated against Latino voters.

Dec. 12 is the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and Latin America. The League of United Latin American Citizens has said the election should be set for Dec. 19. The group contends that the earlier date discriminates against Hispanics to help Bonilla, whose support among Latinos has been eroding. ...

Texas filed the request Tuesday. The state had said it did not need approval because a court had ordered it to set the runoff for the earliest time possible.

Scott Haywood, spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, said Texas has asked for an expedited decision. He said he did not think his office knew the date was the holy day. He said setting the date a week later would push the election into Hanukkah, which begins at sundown Dec. 15, and Christmas. -- State seeks federal OK for Bonilla-Rodriguez election date

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The Baltimore Sun reports: New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer is pressing U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to justify his department's decision not to investigate whether Maryland Republicans purposely misled voters on Election Day by circulating voter guides listing top state GOP candidates as part of a "Democratic Sample Ballot."

"The right to vote is perhaps our most essential civil right, the wellspring of our democracy," Schumer said in a letter sent yesterday to Gonzales. "Unfortunately, the mid-term elections held on November 7, 2006, were tarnished by countless dirty tricks and ugly tactics. The ploy used in Maryland stands out for its sheer cynicism and brazenness."

Campaign committees for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Lt. Gov Michael S. Steele, then a U.S. Senate candidate, jointly sponsored the sample ballots. African-Americans were bused in from Pennsylvania to distribute those fliers and others at polling locations in Prince George's County and Baltimore. First lady Kendel Ehrlich reportedly welcomed the volunteers to Maryland. -- Schumer presses for inquiry of GOP tactics - baltimoresun.com

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The Boston Globe reports: The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the state's failure to ensure that equipment for disabled voters was provided at polling places across Massachusetts during this year's elections, according to three people who spoke with federal investigators this week.

Two investigators from the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division -- trial lawyer James "Nick" Boeving and special litigation counsel Susana Lorenzo-Giguere -- are to arrive in Boston today to begin gathering documents and conducting interviews, according to one of the two people.

Boeving is planning to inquire about the state's failure to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, which requires that every polling place have at least one machine that allows disabled people to vote privately and independently, said Brenda Wright, managing attorney at the Boston-based National Voting Rights Institute. Wright received a call from a Department of Justice lawyer Tuesday. -- US is said to probe Bay State elections - The Boston Globe

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The Monterey County Herald reports: Trustees of Monterey Peninsula College will revisit the issue of district elections in January after hearing Wednesday from supporters of new trustee districts.

Board members heard from local representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who stood steadfastly behind dividing the district into five trustee areas.

One ACLU representative sent information on the trustee districts to the group's national demographer, who works on the Voting Rights Project in Atlanta. The ACLU demographer concluded that five areas would be best for the college district.

Board president Jim Tunney expressed concern that the trustees don't have enough information to determine what format would work best.

In a controversial move, trustees voted in July to switch to one trustee area in Seaside and the other four to at-large seats from the rest of the district. They rescinded their decision Nov. 4 because they said it caused confusion in the community and they want what's best for the district. -- Monterey County Herald | 11/30/2006 | Board delays trustee decision

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The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: Felons would have their voting rights restored automatically after finishing their sentences under a constitutional amendment that lawmakers and activists proposed yesterday.

Activists backed their proposal with a new poll showing that 56 percent of Kentuckians support such a change.

The state constitution imposes a lifetime voting ban on felons; only the governor can reverse it. Gov. Ernie Fletcher changed the process by requiring applicants to write a statement and provide three references. ...

In fiscal year 2003, before Fletcher took office, voting rights were restored to 1,231 felons, according to the coalition, which said the numbers came from the Department of Corrections and the secretary of state.

In fiscal year 2006, that number fell to 227, the coalition said. -- Voting rights for felons proposed

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AP reports: The election officially ended Wednesday when state officials certified the vote. But litigation over it could go on for months and ultimately affect the ability of one-fourth of the Legislature and two appellate court judges to hold office.

Two lawsuits, naming five Democrats and 27 Republicans, have been consolidated into a single case to be heard in Montgomery.

Former Republican attorney general candidate Mark Montiel, who filed the initial suit against four Democratic senators, said he won't drop his case, even though others have expanded it to cover far more Republicans than Democrats. ...

In the Montiel case, the four senators followed a long-standing practice of not filing campaign finance reports when they had no opposition in the Democratic primary. Attorney General Troy King issued an advisory opinion in September, saying candidates should file reports when they raise and spend money in a primary election, even if they have no opposition.

But King said his advisory opinion should apply prospectively — not retroactively — because candidates had been operating under a different interpretation of state campaign finance laws that was issued by then-Attorney General Don Siegelman in 1990. -- Lawsuits over senators could have big impact

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The Orlando Sentinel reports: Tuesday kicked off the state's testing of the touch-screens at the center of the dispute. But by the end of the day, few answers had materialized.

The results of the test varied from Election Day totals by five votes, but it was unclear what that meant. Jennings' camp said it suggested the machines were fallible; Buchanan's team said the differing numbers proved nothing.

Today, officials will review videotapes of the tests -- to ensure testers selected the correct candidates -- and the scripts that the testers worked from. At first blush, the five-vote variance didn't alarm state election officials.

"The machines performed as they should," said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Elections. Any discrepancies, she said, are likely to be "human error." -- Testers re-enact Election Day -- results differ - Orlando Sentinel : State News Testers re-enact Election Day -- results differ - Orlando Sentinel : State News

Comment: Oh, I get it: conclusion first, evidence later.

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The Washington Post reports: Almost since the time the votes were tallied here on election night, the race for Florida's 13th Congressional District has been surrounded by a contentious mystery:

Why were there no votes for Congress recorded from more than 18,000 people who chose candidates in other races? ...

But other experts who have analyzed the ballots and the results argue that the culprit might be not the machines but rather voters confused by a poorly designed ballot.

The congressional race appeared on the same screen as the gubernatorial contest, which had a brighter banner and took up more space.

Ted Selker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a director of the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project, said that tests in his lab have shown that as many as 60 percent of voters can miss races when they are displayed in such a manner.

If the missing votes were caused by ballot design, that is bad news for the challenger, because it is more difficult under Florida law to challenge an election because of ballot design or voter confusion. -- Vote Disparity Still a Mystery In Fla. Election For Congress - washingtonpost.com

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The Washington Post reports: The commissioners of the state's most populous county are considering getting rid of touch-screen voting machines and putting in a new system for the presidential election in 2008.

Cuyahoga County spent $14 million on the Nov. 7 election and cannot afford to spend that much every time voters go to the polls, especially the high volume that a presidential race generates, commissioners Tim Hagan and Jimmy Dimora said. ...

Because of concerns about a repeat of problems in the county's botched May primary, when equipment and other problems caused lengthy delays, the count spent millions more than budgeted in November to cover poll worker training, extra machines and mailing absentee voting applications to every voter to avert polling-place lines and problems.

The general election ran more smoothly, although a judge ordered 16 polling locations to stay open an extra 90 minutes because early voting machine problems caused delays.

Hagan and Dimora said they want high-speed, optical-scan machines, which read paper ballots, to replace the touch-screen machines. Hagan said the commissioners need to decide this year. -- Ohio County May Junk E-Voting Machines - washingtonpost.com

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AP reports: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says First Amendment rights need to be expanded, and eliminating the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaign contributions would be a start.

Gingrich, a Republican, suggested allowing people to give any amount to any candidate as long as the donation was reported online within 24 hours.

"Just as tax lawyers always succeed in out-thinking the (Internal Revenue Service) because they stay after five and the IRS goes home, the private-sector lawyers will always out-think the (Federal Election Commission) because they stay after five and the FEC goes home," Gingrich told about 400 people at the Nackey Scripps Loeb First Amendment Awards dinner Monday.

Passed in 2002, McCain-Feingold bans unrestricted donations from labor, corporations and the wealthy to the political parties. Gingrich said the reforms have failed and led only to more negative campaign ads via e-mail, television, direct mail and phone calls. -- Gingrich calls for elimination of McCain-Feingold reforms - Boston.com

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Hotline reports: It seems good news for Democrats just keeps coming. Going into the election, the party held 94 seats out of 203 in the Pennsylvania State House. The party picked up enough seats to earn a 101-100 lead after most ballots were counted, though two seats – both previously controlled by Republicans – were close enough to require recounts.

Republican Duane Milne kept a narrow 144-vote lead after provisional, overseas and absentee ballots were all cast, creating a 101-101 tie and putting control of the chamber in the hands of the 156th House District. In that race, Republican Shannon Royer led his Democratic opponent, Barbara Smith, by just 19 votes (out of close to 30K cast) going into today’s final counts.

After all the ballots were tallied, Smith reversed the gap and emerged with a 23-vote victory, handing control of the State House to Democrats in a chamber few thought they had a chance of picking off. -- Hotline On Call: Dems Pick Up PA State House

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AP reports: The second judicial bribery trial of attorney Paul S. Minor and two former judges has been postponed until January.

Minor and co-defendants former Chancery Judge Wes Teel and former Circuit Judge John Whitfield had been scheduled to stand trial on Nov. 16. A federal court granted the postponement Monday after Minor's attorneys said they were concerned about the trial occurring during the holiday season.

Minor, who will remain in custody, is accused of bribing Whitfield and Teel. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. was acquitted of bribery charges after a three-month trial last summer, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on some charges against Minor, Teel and Whitfield. -- The Sun Herald | 11/06/2006 | Minor's judicial bribery trial now scheduled for January

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The Daily Herald reports: Brent Waldrop was one of two people to argue with the legislative redistricting committee at its public hearing in Provo on Monday morning. On hand were the bigwigs of Utah government; at stake was a possible fourth seat for Utah in the U.S. House of Representatives and a shake-up of who represents whom. ...

Legislators, Waldrop and Brandon Plewe of Spanish Fork debated for about an hour at the hearing, throwing out new maps and different ideas, waving population distribution graphs and debating where to put a few thousand Davis County residents, and wondering out loud where Democrat U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson lives.

The public hearing is part of a process to get Utah a fourth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives by adding two more seats, the other of which will go to Washington, D.C. Utah designs the districts, all of which need to have about 588,000 residents, the Legislature picks a map and then it goes to the House for discussion.

Ten plans have been conceived; three were on the agenda to be discussed and a fourth, plan G, was amended and added for discussion. Waldrop said he supported plan G, which creates a huge district that's largely rural, except for St. George and south Utah County, two urban districts and one with a mix of the two. ...

The public hearing is part of a process to get Utah a fourth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives by adding two more seats, the other of which will go to Washington, D.C. Utah designs the districts, all of which need to have about 588,000 residents, the Legislature picks a map and then it goes to the House for discussion. -- Daily Herald - Carving up Utah's congressional boundaries

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The Shreveport Times reports: A lawsuit challenging U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery's residency should be heard, not in state court, but in U.S. District Court, a Caddo District judge said Monday.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Patti Cox, one of three candidates who lost to McCrery in the Nov. 7 election. McCrery won re-election with 57 percent of the vote.

Judge Jeanette Garrett ruled a federal court should determine the matter because McCrery won a federal election.

"This court is divested of jurisdiction of this case," Garrett said Monday morning, minutes after McCrery originally had been set to appear in her court for the suit. -- The Shreveport Times

KTBS 3 reports: U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery of Shreveport Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging his residency here, maintaining he is a legal resident of his district and saying Congress -- not the courts -- decides the qualifications for office. ...

McCrery, who sold his house and moved his family to Washington, D.C., in 2004, said residency is not an issue for a judge to decide. -- McCrery moves to dismiss residency challenge

Thanks to Matt Bailey for the tip.

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The New York Times Regional Newspapers reported on 19 November: Democratic state Sen. Larry Means of Attalla has filed amended campaign finance reports following a lawsuit seeking to nullify his Nov. 7 election win over a last-minute write-in candidate.

It’s the second lawsuit seeking to nullify the re-elections of state senators based on alleged noncompliance with Alabama campaign finance disclosure laws. ...

Means originally filed five waivers showing no campaign activity because he didn’t have primary or general election opposition.

“We did what the Secretary of State’s Office told us to do [file waivers] so we went ahead and filed," Means said. “If [the secretary of state] had told us that, that’s what we would have done." -- Senators test campaign finance laws - Tuscaloosa

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The New York Times reports: After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation’s voting system, this month’s midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts.

Tens of thousands of voters, scattered across more than 25 states, encountered serious problems at the polls, including failures in sophisticated new voting machines and confusion over new identification rules, according to interviews with election experts and officials.

In many places, the difficulties led to shortages of substitute paper ballots and long lines that caused many voters to leave without casting ballots. Still, an association of top state election officials concluded that for the most part, voting went as smoothly as expected.

Over the last three weeks, attention has been focused on a few close races affected by voting problems, including those in Florida and Ohio where counting dragged on for days. But because most of this year’s races were not close, election experts say voting problems may actually have been wider than initially estimated, with many malfunctions simply overlooked. -- Experts Concerned as Ballot Problems Persist - New York Times

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The New York Times reports: Gov. Mitt Romney filed a lawsuit Friday asking the state’s highest court to order the legislature to vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage or to place it on the 2008 ballot if lawmakers do not take up the provision.

The legislature voted 109 to 87 on Nov. 9 to recess a constitutional convention before the measure was taken up, which appeared to kill it. The convention was recessed until Jan. 2, the last day of the legislative session.

More than 170,000 people have signed a petition asking the legislature to amend the state’s Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. Massachusetts is the only state that permits it. ...

Lawrence M. Friedman, a specialist on Massachusetts constitutional law at the New England School of Law, said the court must decide if the State Constitution requires the legislature to vote. Professor Friedman signed a brief supporting same-sex marriage in 2003 but has not been involved in the issue since then.

“This case is not about same-sex marriage,” he said. “This is a case, first, about what the legislature is required to do, and second, if there is anything the court can do about it.

“It’s not at all clear to me how this is something the court can remedy. It doesn’t seem likely to me the court will order the legislature to take a vote or subvert constitutional procedures and just put it on the ballot.” -- Massachusetts Governor Sues to Compel Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Amendment - New York Times

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AP reports: State Democrats says Republicans should pay them $4.1 million in damages for an illegal phone-jamming operation that disrupted get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day 2002.

That’s nearly half of what Democrats spent on their six-month effort, which was disrupted for nearly two hours the day it was supposed to pay off.

The state and national Republican parties say they should pay only $4,974 – the actual cost of the disrupted telephone service and rental costs – to $21,287. -- Nashuatelegraph.com: State/New England

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AP reports: A Latino group is objecting to the Dec. 12 Texas congressional runoff election date set by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, saying it's a GOP attempt to "suppress" Hispanic votes by allowing too little time to mobilize and because it falls on a holy day.

A Perry spokeswoman said the governor was merely complying with a court order to set the earliest date possible in the race between Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla and Democrat Ciro Rodriguez. They're seeking the U.S. House seat in a district that was redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the congressional map violated Latinos' voting rights.

A runoff was necessary because none of the eight candidates had 50 percent of the vote in the Nov. 7 election. Bonilla won 49 percent and Rodriguez had 20 percent. ...

Dec. 12 is the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some Latino communities in the district that stretches over a large swath of West and southwest Texas and part of San Antonio attend processions, Mass and family gatherings to honor the day celebrating the appearance of the Virgin before Indian peasant Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531. -- Star-Telegram.com | 11/22/2006 | Latino group objects to congressional runoff date

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The Deseret Morning News reports: Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, will have one fewer Republican in his caucus during the 2007 Legislature, provided Curtis survives an election recount.

After counting provisional and by-mail absentee ballots and having the vote canvass approved by the Salt Lake County Council, Curtis officially defeated Democratic challenger Jay Seegmiller by 19 votes, it was learned Tuesday. That final result was closer than the tallies following Election Day, when Curtis led by 46 votes.

While Democrats likely missed a golden opportunity to take out one of the most powerful Republicans in the state, the minority party in the Legislature did keep another one of its incumbents when Rep. Carl Duckworth, D-Magna, defeated challenger Deena Ely. Duckworth had trailed by 25 votes before the additional ballots were counted but ended up winning by 33 votes, a total large enough to avoid a recount. -- deseretnews.com | Recounts on in 2 races

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The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports: The Nevada Supreme Court has set a public hearing for Dec. 5 in the capital to consider a proposal by Washoe County District Judge Brent Adams to put a buffer between judges and judicial candidates and the business of raising money for their political campaigns.

Adams in July filed with the state Supreme Court a proposal to amend the Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct to prohibit the personal solicitation and acceptance of campaign contributions by judges and judicial candidates. Instead, judges and candidates would use committees to perform the task of raising and collecting money for campaigns.

The proposal is verbatim language from the Model Judicial Code of the American Bar Association passed in 1990. -- reviewjournal.com -- News - State Supreme Court sets hearing on judicial fundraising

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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports: Control of the state House could hinge on whether a handful of Chester County voters used their middle initials when they signed their absentee ballots.

That's the kind of technicality being argued in the county over 20 ballots in two elections that are too close to call.

Republicans, who have an edge in both races after unofficial Election Night returns, want to exclude some provisional and absentee ballots from the final vote total, while Democrats want them counted.

Both sides made their cases yesterday during six hours of testimony before the county commissioners, who are acting as the Board of Elections. Testimony was expected to continue today and a decision on whether to include those ballots could come as soon as Tuesday.

Then, the challenged ballots that are deemed admissible, along with 529 other sealed absentee ballots in the two races, will be opened and counted. -- Control of state House may hinge on technicalities

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AP reports: A Republican defeated in his re-election bid for a legislative seat from southern Indiana has filed a challenge to the election results that could threaten Democratic control of the Indiana House.

The challenge by Republican Billy Bright of North Vernon brings to four the number of election reviews expected in the closely divided Indiana House, which Democrats control 51-49 based on preliminary returns of the Nov. 7 election.

Those results showed Democrat Dave Cheatham, who was sworn into office Tuesday, defeating Bright 10,861 to 9,244 in District 69, but Bright is questioning the high number of absentee ballots in Jennings County.

He said 30 percent of the votes cast in Jennings County were absentee ballots, compared with the statewide average of 9 percent.

“We believe that the unbelievably high number of absentee ballots are a concern,” Bright said Tuesday. “We believe there were some real irregularities in Jennings County, and we will find the truth.” -- Journal Gazette | 11/22/2006 | Latest election challenge could split House 50-50

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The Jackson Citizen-Patriot reports: U.S. Rep.-elect Tim Walberg illegally took more than $500,000 in his bid for Congress, a new Federal Election Commission complaint alleges.

The 16-page document and 140-page donor spreadsheet obtained by the Citizen Patriot also calls for an injunction against Club for Growth, a Washington-based lobby that helped net more than $1.1 million for Walberg, R-Tipton.

U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, whose campaign filed the grievance last week, met with FEC Commissioner Michael Toner in August. The FEC is suing Club for Growth for alleged fundraising violations. -- Walberg complaint filed

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The Orlando Sentinel reports: The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes.

The trend, which continues up the ticket to the race for governor and U.S. Senate, suggests that if votes were truly cast and lost -- as Democrat Christine Jennings maintains -- they were votes that likely cost her the congressional election.

Republican Vern Buchanan's 369-vote victory was certified by state officials Monday. His camp says that, although people may have skipped the race -- intentionally or not -- there is no evidence that votes went missing. -- Analysis: Ballots favored Dems - Orlando Sentinel : State News Analysis: Ballots favored Dems - Orlando Sentinel : State News

Comment: I wonder how many of those now saying that the missing votes are deliberate undervotes also believe that the Weapons of Mass Destruction actually existed?

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CQPolitics reports: The number of Nov. 7 House general elections in which the winner has not been firmly established has dwindled to four. But at least one of these, the controversy-plagued contest for the open seat in Florida’s 13th District, is unlikely to be decided for weeks — and even has the potential to kick off the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress in January with a dispute over whether to seat the certified winner.

That candidate is Republican Vern Buchanan: The Florida secretary of state’s office yesterday certified the wealthy car dealer as the victor, by a margin of 369 votes, over Democrat Christine Jennings, a former bank president.

Jennings immediately filed a lawsuit in Leon County, which is well north of the 13th District but includes the state capital of Tallahassee. The crux of Jennings’ complaint — which demands that a new election be called — is that there were more than 18,000 “undervotes” in Sarasota County, the district’s largest jurisdiction and the source of Jennings’ greatest electoral strength.

The “undervotes” refer to ballots in which votes were registered for other offices but not for the House race between Buchanan and Jennings. -- Legal Fight in Florida's 13th Could Stretch Into 2007 - Yahoo! News

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CQPolitics reports: New Mexico Republican Rep. Heather A. Wilson (news, bio, voting record) has survived her toughest race of a House career that dates to 1998. Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid on Tuesday conceded the 1st District contest, in which she trailed Wilson by fewer than 900 votes.

Madrid, the state attorney general, said at an Albuquerque press conference that she did not intend to seek a full recount, even though Wilson led by just 105,916 votes to 105,037, according to the Associated Press.

That 879-vote difference produced a margin of victory of less than one-half of 1 percentage point, a threshold that in several states would have triggered an automatic recount. But New Mexico does not have such a provision, so Madrid’s campaign would have had to bear the cost of a recount unless it changed the outcome of the election. ...

Despite Madrid’s decision to pass up a full recanvass, the vote counting and numbers in the contest still are not completely finalized. New Mexico Democratic Party Executive Director Matt Farrauto told CQPolitics.com it was “reasonably likely” that party officials would request a partial recount, a possibility party Chairman John Wertheim raised in Tuesday’s news conference. -- Madrid Concedes, But New Mexico Dems Aren't Done Yet - Yahoo! News

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Alex Koppelman and Lauren Shell write in Salon: Before the 2006 midterm election, you couldn't escape the predictions of Election Day disaster: voting machine meltdowns, interminable lines, endless recounts. But the control of both houses of Congress was decided without interference from Diebold or hanging chads, so few (outside of Florida's 13th Congressional District) are suffering flashbacks of 2000 and 2004.

But while this year might not have included any repeats of Palm Beach County or Ohio, that doesn't mean the midterm elections were squeaky clean. This November there were some old-school dirty tricks that had nothing to do with voting machines or secretaries of state. An unscientific sample seems to show that most were the product of a party that was desperate for something, anything, that would help it protect its doomed congressional majorities. The bulk of this year's murky dealings took place in those tightly contested races -- from the battle for Virginia's Senate seat to House races in Illinois, New York and Connecticut -- that were crucial to control of Congress.

Fortunately, politicians in several states and the U.S. Senate are taking steps to criminalize some of the more heinous tricks played this year. Before any of the bad deeds from this election are forgotten, here's Salon's Cheat Sheet -- our top 10 list of dirt.

In Maryland, Republicans turn Democrat -- and truck in homeless men to spread the word ... In Virginia, voter intimidation ... The Social Security Administration gets into the act ... "Not like in Mexico, here there is no benefit to voting." ... Blood runs thicker than party affiliation ... The robot that called. And called. And called ... Push polls ... The progressive group that wasn't ... Case of the vanished polling place ... And last, but not least -- vigilantes -- The GOP's dirty deeds of 2006 | Salon News

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AP reports: State officials Monday certified that Republican Vern Buchanan won the House seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Katherine Harris, though the loser immediately sued for a new election, arguing that touch-screen voting machines had malfunctioned.

Democrat Christine Jennings contested her 369-vote loss in the 13th District, asking a judge to order a new election because of problems in Sarasota County, where more than 17,000 voters who cast ballots in other races Nov. 7 failed to vote in the congressional contest.

That rate is nearly six times higher than in the other counties in the congressional district or on Sarasota's paper absentee ballots, Jennings alleges in her legal challenge. Though she lost in the other four counties in the district, Jennings did well in Sarasota County, winning there by a margin of 6 percentage points.

Jennings' lawyer, Kendall Coffey, said there were eyewitness accounts of voting problems. -- Florida House race loser sues | Chicago Tribune

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AP reports: Until this year, Missourians had been able to vote for every Republican, Democratic or Libertarian candidate merely by checking one box at the top of the ballot, instead of placing a mark by each individual name.

But the Republican-led state Legislature, over the objection of Democrats, did away with that option in a law that took effect Aug. 28.

The generally accepted political theory was that fewer votes would be cast in contests listed lower on the ballot, as people accustomed to the timesaving straight-ticket option grew weary of having to choose between numerous individual candidates. ..

But it seems the repeal neither benefited Republicans nor resulted in fewer votes for down-ballot races. -- AP Wire | 11/19/2006 | Election bucks expectations on repeal of straight-ticket voting

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The Savannah Morning News reports: Chatham County commissioners had a vexing question to answer Friday: Should county employees be able to run for office, even if it is a non-partisan position they are seeking?

Thunderbolt Mayor Anna Marie Thomas and Garden City Council Member Misty Bethune - who also are county employees - hoped commissioners would answer that query.

Both left hopeful, having voiced their opposition to the idea, but without resolution.

Instead, the commission voted unanimously to table a proposal that seeks to amend the county's personnel ordinance and procedures manual to prohibit employees from seeking any political office. -- County postpones decision on employee policy proposal | SavannahNow.com

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AP reports: Sue Bell Cobb, elected Alabama’s first female chief justice after what was likely the second most expensive judicial race in American history, is determined to change more about Alabama’s courts than the gender of the top judge.

Cobb said she hopes to use her six-year term to institute nonpartisan elections for judges in Alabama. ...

Through late October, Cobb had reported raising $2.4 million and Nabers had pulled in $4 million, including his primary race. Republican Justice Tom Parker reported $311,399 in contributions in his losing primary race against Nabers.

Cobb, Nabers and Parker won’t have to report their final totals until January, but the Justice at Stake Campaign, a nonpartisan group that tracks spending in judicial races, said the race appears to be the most expensive court race in America in 2006 and the second most expensive in the nation’s history.

The record of $9.3 million was set in an Illinois contest in 2004, spokesman Jesse Rutledge said.

Cobbs call the cost of the Alabama campaign “indecent.” -- Chief justice-elect urges nonpartisan elections in state

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Judge J. Scott Vowell writes in the Birmingham News: As an Alabama judge, I am embarrassed by the recent judicial elections. We must change the way we select our judges. Now, before the mud is dry, is a good time to start.

All Alabama state court judges in both the appellate and trial courts are elected for six-year terms in partisan political races. A judicial candidate must first win the nomination of one of the political parties and then win in a general election. Alabama is one of the last states to select judges in this manner.

We want our judges to decide cases based upon the law and the facts. We do not want judges who decide disputes based on politics. Why should we select them because of their politics? Most voters have no way of knowing which judicial candidates are best qualified for the job. The curious voter can learn something about the candidates from bar association polls, attorneys' endorsements and newspaper recommendations. Some voters learn about the candidates from expensive political advertising, but many just vote a straight party ticket, regardless of the candidates' qualifications.

Alabama spends far more money on judicial elections than any other state. During this 2006 campaign alone, it was reported that Alabama Supreme Court candidates raised more than $11.5 million. These campaign funds come primarily from lawyers and special-interest groups who have an interest in the outcome of litigation that will come before these same judicial candidates when they become judges. This hardly promotes the public's confidence in the fairness of the courts. -- Want fairness?

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The Birmingham News reports: Those write-in votes eat up the time and patience of election officials and poll workers, said Kim Melton, who superv