Politics By ROBERT KIECKHEFER

Governor's race: count, canvass and recount

A FULL-SCALE RECOUNT of the votes in the governor's race? We know why. But how? And when? At this writing (December 6), there are many uncertainties. The strategy for a statewide recount is just the opposite of the strategy for the official canvass of votes, conducted in the week after the election. It also differs markedly from the goals of the discovery recount.

In the canvass, attorneys for both Gov. James R. Thompson and Democratic challenger Adlai E. Stevenson III battled fiercely to find as many votes as possible for their candidates. The basic game

Court and recount ON DECEMBER 13 (as this magazine went to press), the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments December 21 in the first round of a possible gubernatorial recount. The justices agreed to hear Gov. James R. Thompson's motion to dismiss Adlai E. Stevenson III's recount petition and Stevenson's objection to Thompson's dismissal motion. This is the first test of the 1977 statute which spells out the procedure for a statewide recount.

plan was to find and count as many votes as possible.

In the discovery recount, Stevenson's people wanted to find a significant number of uncounted Democratic votes in the City of Chicago because of possible malfunctions in the election machinery.

If Thompson hadn't filed for a discovery recount of some Chicago precincts, Stevenson would have done so. And even after Thompson filed, Stevenson's camp added a few precincts of their own to the list for discovery recount.

But a full-scale recount is a different kettle of fish. As they review the ballots in a recount, the lawyers will look not only for more votes for their candidate — but also for questionable vote for the other guy. They want to take away votes from the opposition.

That can be done by finding ballot that lack the proper initials of the election judge or that weren't properly safeguarded before the counting process. Challengers also can check the signatures on ballot applications against those on registration documents in search of ghost voters.

That process began in the discovery process, too. That's why Stevenson filed for discovery in counties like DuPage and why Thompson eventually filed in Chicago precincts. The vote was so heavily Democratic in Chicago that any sizable number of errors would have to eat into Stevenson's margin. In DuPage County, Thompson would suffer.

It's interesting, especially considering the state's reputation as a hotbed for election fraud, that neither candidate is charging any wide-scale wrong-doing in this year's voting.

Stevenson, in fact, went out of his way when he announced he wanted a recount to say he was not charging vote fraud. He said only that the margin of Thompson's victory was so small that errors could reverse it.

Thompson also shied away from claiming wrongdoing, although when he claimed victory he did warn that he would not permit anyone to steal the election from him during the counting process.

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There are lots of other uncertainties in a statewide recount besides the vote total. The laws have never been tested, and the judges appointed to consider the recount would be under a lot of pressure to set ground rules and oversee the actual work of recounting more than 3.6 million ballots.

There's even doubt about what the judges would do after they finished the recount. Some of Stevenson's aides think the judges might decide the November 2 election was so close and so questionable that they might order a new election, rather than certify either candidate a winner.

If that happened, the next question would be when to schedule a new election. The most likely time would be during the municipal elections April 12. Balloting is already scheduled in virtually all areas of the state that day, and it would be relatively inexpensive to rerun the governor's election as an addon.

That could be a plus for Stevenson because of the high interest in the Chicago mayor's race — especially if Harold Washington wins the primary and a white candidate files to run against him as an independent. In those circumstances, even the heavy turnout of the November 2 election could be exceeded, providing Stevenson an even greater margin than last time around. While neither camp sees a new election as a likely outcome of the recount, each claims it would have an edge in such a rerun.

Thompson's supporters feel many of their potential voters stayed home because of polls showing the governor winning easily. In a second race, they argue, those voters would turn out.

Stevenson supporters use exactly the opposite side of the same argument, saying their voters were turned off by the perceived likelihood that Stevenson would lose big. Knowing the race would be close, those voters would cast ballots in a rematch, Stevenson aides said.

Another consideration about a rematch is the uncertainty it can cause in the operation of government. While it is unlikely that Stevenson will ultimately triumph, it is possible. And as any devoted Springfield watcher will admit, the legislature is not likely to do much of anything with that kind of cloud hanging over the rotunda.□

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