Wendy Barth, Green Party candidate for Congress in Iowa's 2nd District, is calling for a recount.
"In examining the county-by county totals, I saw something odd. In Linn County, while 600 straight ticket votes were cast for the Green Party, the Green Party's presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, only received 105 votes. Shouldn't there be at least 600 votes for McKinney?
"It is possible that voters selected straight ticket and then over-rode that vote by voting for another presidential candidate. For example, Green Party voters could have voted for Ralph Nader instead of McKinney (or, indeed, any of the other candidates on the ballot.) While this is possible, would 500 out of 600 Green Party voters have done this? That seems unlikely.
"I'm not trying to accuse anyone of cheating. I just want to understand how this could have happened. It could be a computer error. If there is a bug in the vote-counting software, I want to find it and get it fixed. Democracy is too precious to let errors like this, if it is an error, stand."
Since straight-ticket Green Party votes are also votes for Barth, she has standing to ask for the recall.
She will file for a recount on Monday.
If this recall does uncover a software glitch, Barth offers her services as a professional software engineer to the State of Iowa to peer review the election software, to search for other possible problems.
