(Update: Success on both fronts: the AZ Dems committed to sending out an email blast about the need to validate provisional ballots and Carmona sent his own blast reminding everyone that 1/3 of the vote is uncounted. Time to run up the Mission Accomplished Banner on this diary. WOOT! Thanks to everyone who did anything.)
I feel that attention should be drawn to the fact that fully 1/3 of Arizona's total votes, about 632,000, are uncounted. 172,000 of these are provisional ballots.
Richard Carmona is down by only 78,700 votes as of this morning.
Each one of those 632,000 votes could have a Senate vote on it.
WHY DID CARMONA CONCEDE?
And why won't he un-concede?
Many many of us worked very very hard to bring early voters to the polls. Many of the provisional ballots are going to be Carmona votes, as are many of the early votes.
BECAUSE WE WORKED OUR ASSES OFF TO GET THEM IN.
I and many others have contacted the Carmona campaign, which seems to have the collective opinion that they are unlikely to pull an extra 78,701 votes out of the 632,000 left to count.
Why, in a year like this, with a Democratic landslide in the White House and Senate, they would discount our potential...?
Carmona's concession is likely non-binding. But for those of us who worked and voted, to concede with so much still on the table is, I think, unseemly.
If you can spare the time to give the campaign a call and ask them to consider un-conceding, Arizona Dems like me would be most grateful.
(602) 441-3595
There is also a Move-On member-generated petition you could sign, if you felt so moved.
http://signon.org/...
I don't have much more on this. I have a call in to the legal counsel for the AZ Dems to confirm that the concession is not binding. Other than that, it's just optics. But they might matter. A significant number of the provisional ballots are from people who had no identification, and needed it for whatever reason- new voter, wrong polling spot...
If those voters don't show up to the courthouse with their ID by Tuesday- their ballots will NOT be counted. If they went out to vote for Carmona and they already know he's lost, why would they bother? People work, have kids... it's hard to get this stuff done. IMHO, Carmona needs to unconcede and MAKE A PUBLIC STATEMENT to encourage his supporters to make sure that their early and provisional ballots are counted.