Recount may loom amid confusion in Connecticut governor race

Remember in 2000 when presidential candidate Al Gore thought he won in Florida and it took weeks of lawyers looking at “hanging chads” to declare George W. Bush the winner there? The Connecticut governor’s race may become a case of Florida déjà vu.

Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, on the basis of unofficial results, has declared Democrat Dan Malloy the victor over Republican Tom Foley. But she says the margin of victory was a meager 3,103 votes out of more than 1 million cast.

By Mr. Foley’s count, he thinks he won by 2,000 votes. On Thursday morning, the Associated Press, which had declared Mr. Malloy the winner, withdrew its announcement and said Foley was ahead by 8,424 votes. But AP did not announce any winner.

In an interview Thursday, Foley is calling for Ms. Bysiewicz to publish her numbers. “We assume she has the data to back that up,” he says. “We’ve asked her to put it on her website; she hasn’t done it. I don’t know, if it’s a close race, why an officer of the state would be calling a race, particularly in favor of someone from her own party.”

Foley says his campaign has a meeting Thursday with Bysiewicz to try to reconcile the difference, and he has teams in Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford to “confirm the results they recorded are accurate.”

In an e-mail, Bysiewicz spokesman Av Harris says a planned noon press conference on Thursday has been postponed until later Thursday afternoon.

The Connecticut race is far from unique. In Minnesota, the governor’s race between Democrat Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer is so close that it may trigger an automatic recount. So far, Mr. Dayton is ahead but not by enough to be declared the winner.

Minnesota voters may well remember the tight Senate race there in 2008, when Democrat Al Franken defeated Republican Norm Coleman by 312 votes. It took eight months to do the recount, settle the litigation, and swear-in Senator Franken.

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