What happened in Yellowstone County, MT?

After a long and mostly decisive night, we still can't overstate our wins.  The Senate is not over, if the Republicans have anything to say about it.  They will try and get Montana and Virginia to change their vote totals.

The biggest mess is in Montana, where Jon Tester now leads Conrad Burns by 3,128 votes, according to CNN, with less than 1% left to be counted.  Here is the deal though: by state law, an automatic recount will be issued, free of cost to the candidate, if Burns trails by 0.25% or less.  However, if Burns is between 0.25% and 0.5% behind Tester, he can file a petition with the secretary of state's office and he must for the recount himself.  At the moment, Conrad Burns is within 0.15%, meaning there will be a recount no matter what.

The problem is we have not even got to a recount yet.  Some counties, such as Yellowstone, which is ironically Conrad Burns' home county, they are still counting after workers did not know how to operate the machines:

"Yellowstone County is counting their ballotsagain. They encountered some difficulty operating their vote-countingmachine, and as a result, they are counting their ballots again," saidBowen Greenwood, press representative for Montana secretary of state'soffice.

It is highly unlikely that Burns could make up the 3,128 vote difference, according to the Billings Gazette.  On the Billings Gazette web site, they have already declared Jon Tester the winner.  The Associated Press also declared Tester the winner.

Regardless, there is a pending recount.  We also need to get more information regarding what happened in Yellowstone County, and why poll workers were unable to work the machines?  Last night, I also remember hearing other reports of poll workers re-marking ballots because they had been marked by some voters with the wrong writing utensil.

I will stay on this.

JUST IN: According to the Great Falls Tribune in Montana, new votes from Butte-Silver Bow are now in, and Jon Tester has a 3,000-vote cushion.  Nonetheless, the battle over what happened in Yellowstone County begins.

Comments

[Greg]

I know I posted this in the other thread, but according to ABCNews Tester has won.

[George]

cnn called it for tester too.

nice tester picture. hopefully he can give birth before his tenure officially begins.

[Marcy]

Shame on you George! You know how they say the camera puts 10 pounds on you!!! :-)

As for the remarking....guess this was REALLY SUPER watched, by BOTH parties and all officials, so in the end was not an issue.

Tester has WON, according to all the news outlets and the SOS did not foresee any problems. YES!
The other story here is that CONrad Burns said he is not conceding. He left his Billings hotel room this morning, would not talk with anyone and finally issued a statement saying he would not concede.
He is acting like a child AGAIN (just like he did at one of the debates....he would not shake Tester's hand afterwards!). At some point, the Rep.'s will make him. Am not sorry to see him go.

[Marcy]

ps......
Yellowstone recounted ALL ballots (after a worker forgot to reset a machine). For being Burns home turf, Burns only came out ahead 1222 votes. So, did Bush's visit help or hurt him?
In the remarked area, Tester came out ahead 158 votes.

[george]

Marcy, Please send out a huge thank you to everyone you know who supported Tester, including yourself.

This was a wonderful victory for the middle class, for oil independence and for inclusive social policies. It was a defeat for fear mongering politics and elitist leadership.

I will certainly hold this Democratic Party to their promises, specifically of making significant progress on oil independence. At least today, I feel like there is hope.

THANK YOU!