Loser Allen West's crusade continues

He's even more of a blowhard when he loses. The odds of Rep. Allen West emerging victorious in his reelection bid get longer by the day. He's far enough behind in balloting to be unlikely to catch up, and so far his legal efforts have been laughable. But that doesn't mean he's not going to continue to scream "fraud" and keep fighting. His campaign is declaring that the supervisor of elections in St. Lucie County is trying to 'steal the election for Patrick Murphy.'

'West for Congress will pursue every legal means necessary to ensure a fair election, not only to ensure Gertrude Walker is held accountable, but also ultimately replaced, so the citizens of St. Lucie County will be ensured fair and accurate elections,' he said in the statement.

This is stemming from the definitely unorthodox partial recount St. Lucie County elections conducted over the weekend. They determined that there were errors with their tabulating machines reading some of the memory cartridges containing ballots from early voting, but that it was limited to only the last three days of the eight-day early vote, so they limited the recount to those days. West gained votes in that recount, and not entirely unreasonably, wants the entire early vote recounted. In addition, he still has a hearing pending to have the machines and ballots for the entire vote in St. Lucie impounded. That hearing has apparently not been scheduled.

Even with the gain West made in the partial recount, though, he's still well outside of the margin of votes necessary to trigger a full recount. He's also probably outside the margin for taking the lead in a potential recount or with the handful of outstanding military and overseas ballots. He's lost. The final count that's going to be issued on Friday will prove that. He'll keep fighting, but taking it the courts will likely be a losing battle for him as well.

A losing battle, but an expensive one for Murphy, who has to keep a legal team on hand countering West's action. He's also got to get started preparing for his new official duties, and in fact is in Washington for orientation. So he's got his hands full, and doesn't need to also be worrying about where the money is going to come from to combat West's big war chest and rich backers.

Please chip in $3 to help Patrick Murphy fight this legal battle.