Tuesday's New Hampshire Primary has spawned a point of bi-partisan agreement: a recount is needed. Republican long-shot Albert Howard has joined Democrat Dennis Kucinich in calling for a recount of election results.
Albert Howard is one of the Republican party's long-shot candidates: One of the people who paid the fee and were entered on New Hampshire's Primary ballot, even though he has received little public notice. (These are the candidates usually referred to as, "other," in the polls and post-Primary election results.) According to
his website, his candidacy is Divinely inspired:
"The Angel of the Lord told me in January of 1992 that Hillary Rodham Clinton and I would meet and be running against each other and that she would lose". - Albert Benjamin Howard
Officially, he was credited with just over 40 votes on Tuesday, but
according to reports, Howard believes he received as many as 187 votes. As the candidate watched C-SPAN coverage of the early election results, he was pleasantly surprised to see he had reached 50 votes with around 12% of the votes counted, and the total rose as high as 187 during C-SPAN's coverage.
Based on his observations, Howard joined Democrat Dennis Kucinich in requesting a hand-count of all New Hampshire Primary ballots.
According to an
AP report printed in the Boston Globe, New Hampshire election officials are preparing for the recounts. Both Kucinich and Howard each paid a $2,000 fee to start the process, according to the report.
However, the recounts may still not take place. The $2,000 fee is basically a "deposit" toward the final cost of the recount. Each candidate will have the option of backing out of the recount when the full-cost estimate is given to them next week. The total cost to recount ballots could run into the tens of thousands of dollars. If either (or both) wish to pay the full cost, the recount could start as early as next Wednesday.
New Hampshire's Deputy Secretary of State, David Scanlan indicated confidence that any recounts will verify the accuracy of the certified results.
Albert Howard's belief that "Those who cast the votes decide nothing...Those who count the votes decide everything" is certainly a driving force behind his request. But so too, it seems, is there a certain opportunism to draw attention to a campaign being waged on the periphery. Quoting from the
"New Hampshire Recount" page of Howard's web-site:
Thank you for your support in our fight for truth. We have been flooded with e-mails and media requests and are doing our best to respond to everyone.
Yesterday it was made official when Albert Howard met with Secretary of State William Gardner and handed him $2000 in cash.
This was the initial amount that was needed to start the process.
As soon as we have more information on the total cost we will post it here.
Albert Howard has requested that the recount will be done by paper trail hand count. This is a costly procedure. Again, thank you for your tremendous support. You are part of making history.
Look for more information on this page as soon as it is available to us.
