Election Recounts

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe skipped a regional summit Saturday addressing the deepening crisis over the country's contentious presidential election, giving southern African leaders little chance to step up the pressure on him. The summit reflected Mugabe's growing isolation, as well as cracks in the usually uniform solidarity with him exhibited by the Southern African Development Community.

The two factions of Zimbabwe's divided opposition Movement for Democratic Change have reached a deal to cooperate in parliament and claimed Monday that some ruling party lawmakers had defected, steps that give them a solid parliamentary majority. The MDC factions together control 109 seats in the 210-member parliament following March 29 elections. An independent lawmaker, Jonathon Moyo, said Monday that he also might side with the opposition in the new parliament.

Sen. Norm Coleman saw his lead over Al Franken in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race dwindle to two votes Thursday. Meanwhile, a court ruling put hundreds of rejected ballots in play and promised the recount would drag into the new year. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that improperly rejected absentee ballots must be included in the recount. The ruling came as the state Canvassing Board erased what was once a 360-vote lead for Coleman.

Minnesota's highest court Wednesday ruled against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's attempt to keep dozens of possible double votes from Democrat-heavy precincts out of the long- running Senate recount, but left the door open for a lawsuit. The state Supreme Court unanimously denied Coleman's request for a temporary restraining order to block the votes, which the Coleman campaign contended were duplicates that mostly favored Democratic rival Al Franken.

A Vietnamese American school board member from Garden Grove who was a political unknown two months ago emerged Wednesday as the winner of an Orange County Board of Supervisors seat by just seven votes out of nearly 46,000 cast. But an expected recount means the election may not be settled for weeks.

The two Republicans named Nguyen entered the race for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors as blips on the establishment's screen: He an obscure school board member, she a neophyte councilwoman. Against them stood candidates anointed by the Republican and Democratic machines -- as well as the wisdom that in immigrant-rich central Orange County, party loyalties won elections.

Orange County elections officials Tuesday will begin recounting ballots from last week's Board of Supervisors election that was decided by seven votes. Garden Grove councilwoman Janet Nguyen, who lost the race for the 1st District seat, officially asked for the recount this week. A full recount, the only way the election could be overturned, would take three to four days and cost Nguyen $1,200 a day, Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said. Nguyen can stop the recount at any time.

Election officials have recounted the bulk of the ballots in a very tight supervisorial election and could announce the result Monday, the Orange County registrar of voters said Friday. "The absentee and paper ballots are finished," Registrar Neal Kelley said of the race between Janet Nguyen and Trung Nguyen to replace Lou Correa for the county Board of Supervisors' 1st District seat. "Only the electronic votes need to be recounted." Correa was elected to the state Senate in November.

Janet Nguyen was certified Monday as the winner of the Feb. 6 election for Orange County supervisor after a weeklong ballot recount that will probably be challenged in court by the initial top vote-getter, fellow Republican Trung Nguyen. County Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said Janet Nguyen's margin of victory was seven votes -- the same number she was behind when the recount began.

Saying they preferred that a court sort out a contested ballot recount, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to delay naming the winner of the Feb. 6 election for one week. The decision came a day after Janet Nguyen claimed victory -- an announcement made a couple of hours before Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley certified that she had bested fellow Republican Trung Nguyen by seven votes in the race for the 1st District supervisorial seat.