"Electoral math offers number of nightmares" is the headline of a lengthy and fascinating article today in USA Today. Down near the end of the story comes this:
Both campaigns are ready to apply lessons learned from past recount battles.Posted by Marcia Oddi at September 2, 2004 01:11 PMThe battle in Florida four years ago was hardly the first. Republicans cite the showdown over the 8th Congressional District of Indiana in the 1984 election with the kind of emotion that veterans of other battles remembered the Alamo or the sinking of the Maine.
In that contest, state officials certified Republican Richard McIntyre as the winner by 34 votes. But the Democratic-controlled U.S. House, after recounts, declared Democrat Frank McCloskey the winner by four votes — the narrowest margin in a congressional race in U.S. history.
After Indiana, Republicans adopted more aggressive tactics, according to Rich Galen, a GOP consultant who was then working for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And they have paid as much attention to the public relations of a recount as its legalities. Both points proved helpful in the presidential recount in Florida four years ago, he says.