Avoyelles D.A. Charles Riddle prevails in recount

Avoyelles Parish got a preview of a scene likely to be played out on a larger scale in several states in the coming days when the parish's Board of Election Commissioners met Monday to recount the votes in a close contest. It will apparently get a preview of another such scene when a lawsuit challenging the results of the Nov. 3 election and Monday's recount is filed and goes to court.

After the final precinct reported on the night of Nov. 3, the results showed District Attorney Charles Riddle had won re-election by 364 votes over Barry Laiche. This past Monday, the five-member Avoyelles Parish Board of Election Supervisors, with monitors from the Secretary of State's Office, recounted those votes. Laiche gained one vote in the recount.

"There are a couple of parts to the issue," Laiche said after the recount. "It's not as simple as recounting the votes."

Laiche said an important aspect of his challenge deals with the ballot itself -- both the absentee ballots that were mailed in and with the election day voting machines.

"This election was lost by 364 votes and after reviewing the mail-in ballots today I can say that significantly more of them had defects afftecting their validity than the number of votes I lost by," Laiche said.

Riddle said Laiche's complaint is not valid, focusing on such "defects" as a voter not knowing what ward and precinct they lived in when filling out the information on the ballot and affidavit attached to it.

"If the registrar is able to place the voter in the right precinct, and verify the signature is that of the registered voter, then that ballot is counted," Riddle said.

"I expect Mr. Laiche will file a lawsuit challenging the election by Thursday," Riddle continued, "and I expect the election results to be upheld."

Laiche said he will be filing a lawsuit to challenge the election results because of the problems with absentee ballots and a "significant under-vote that just does not make sense."

'UNDER-VOTE'

Riddle received 8,129 votes in the election night tally, compared to Laiche's 7,765 -- a 51 percent to 49 percent margin of victory.

Both men noted on election night that there were 1,398-vote fewer votes cast in the parishwide district attorney's race than in the presidential election. Both also said they had received calls from supporters who failed to see the election on the early voting ballot.

Laiche also said callers told him they had tried to vote for him and the voting machine would not register the vote.

"The state law says a challenge can be filed in the case of irregularities, error, fraud or other unlawful action," Laiche said. The almost 1,400 "under-vote" could be considered an "irregularity" and the issue of voters' votes somehow being blocked by the voting machine is a possible "error" to be addressed.

To have that many voters fail to vote in the only parishwide local election on the ballot would need to be due to physical problem with registering the vote or with the items placement on the ballot, he said.

"There may be a few voters who say, 'They're both attorneys. I don't like lawyers, so I'm not voting for either one of them,' but that would be very few," Laiche said.

There is also the possibility that some portion of the "under-vote" in the DA's race was a protest to demonstrate disapproval of one or more actions or perceived inactions by Riddle in recent years without the voters actually casting a vote for his Republican opponent.

There was an "under-vote" or "drop off" of 979 votes between the presidential race and the U.S. Senate contest, and 419 between the Senate and district attorney elections. Any "protest" votes would be in the 419 number.

Laiche said Riddle led by 475 votes when early and absentee ballots were reported prior to the first precinct results coming in.

"I outpaced Charlie Riddle on election day," he said.

If the court agrees with Laiche that there were enough "irregularities" and/or "errors" to put the results in question, "the remedy would be to call another election," he said.

NATIONAL ELECTION

"Recount" is a word that will be said often in the next few weeks on the national scene, where some or all states with close results for the presidential election are expected to review the election night tallies. Those states where a recount has been threatened include Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Like Laiche, President Donald Trump has questioned the validity and/or legality of many mail-in ballots -- those that were submitted prior to the Nov. 3 election and those that arrived after that date in states with election laws that allow counting them. Unlike Laiche, Trump has made allegations of intentional fraud in the election.

Joseph Biden has been declared the winner in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada based on what are said to be wide enough leads to make it impossible for Donald Trump to catch up. Biden was leading in Georgia with 99 percent of votes counted and Trump was leading in North Carolina with about 98 percent of the votes counted.

Those six states have 78 electoral votes with 47 currently included in Biden's "official" total of 290. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. If the vote counts in Pennsylvania and one other "Biden" state were "flipped," Trump would be re-elected.