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Dem Russ Carnahan Wins, GOPer Ed Martin Alleges Shenanigans
By Tricia Miller | November 3, 2010 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Associated Press called Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan (D) the winner after a long night in his St. Louis-area district. Carnahan got 48.9 percent to Republican Ed Martin's 46.7 percent.

The winning percentage is critical because a candidate who loses by less than one percent in Missouri is allowed to ask for a recount. Since Martin lost by 2.2 percent, he won't be able to ask for one.

So Martin is pursuing another route. In an e-mail to supporters Wednesday morning he wrote that he thought there may have been irregularities in Tuesday's voting process. He pointed to three issues. He said election computer systems were down part of the day, the Board of Elections hired a security firm with ties to Carnahan's campaign, and a "mathematically implausible" number of votes in favor of the Democrat came in late in the evening.

"Missourians deserve to have their elections free and fair, and unfortunately Robin Carnahan's office has not pursued the sort of clean voter rolls needed to have complete faith in an electoral outcome," Martin wrote. "We will investigate, and keep you posted."

At this point, however, it doesn't seem likely those allegations will play in Martin's favor and we officials we called haven't substantiated his claims.

These aren't the first allegations in the race, even just this week. On Monday Carnahan filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that Martin illegally used e-mails from a nonprofit to benefit his campaign.

Carnahan's race wasn't expected to be this close, but the two candidates' close ties to the candidates in the Senate race may have been what made the difference.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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