In the Right

CORRECTION:

One of the things that's always bothered me most about political journalism is when media types make a mistake, honest or otherwise, but then refuse to acknowledge and correct it when it's called to their attention. As a guy who used to get paid to, among other things, track what the media was saying on a regular basis, it drove me crazy when I found mistakes in copy about my candidates -- but failed to get the reporter to fix the mistake properly.

On Tuesday night, I made an error as I was preparing a piece on the count of absentee ballots in NY23. It wasn't a particularly sophisticated error -- in fact, it was a simple error of transposition, in which I inadvertently turned a 1 into a 7 and a 7 into a 1. Unfortunately, those inadvertently switched numbers formed the basis for what became the blog post below, suggesting that Doug Hoffman just might get mighty close to recount territory.

The difference in the candidates' totals was 3,176. With the transposed numbers back in their proper place, I can safely project that in order even to get into recount range, Doug Hoffman would need a miracle far larger than the Miracle on Ice I referenced.

I want to thank the two faithful readers who brought the mistake to my attention for doing so in such a gracious way.

What follows is the original blog post, error intact:

Calling Al Michaels -- New York 23 May Need You

If the rest of the yet-to-be-counted absentee ballots go the way the first three counties' results do, we're in for a recount in the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District.

When the day began, there were 7,419 absentee ballots whose votes had not yet been added to the candidates' totals, and the gap separating Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman from Democratic Party candidate Bill Owens was a paltry 3,716 votes.

By mid-afternoon, three counties had tabulated their results:

In Oneida County, Hoffman picked up 446 votes, Owens picked up 219, and GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava picked up 97.