10 days after election, votes still being counted in handful of races for House

(AP) Ten days after Election Day, the outcome is still in dispute in a handful of close contests for the House as election officials count and recount ballots from absentee voters and those who were challenged at the polls.

Election officials in North Carolina and New Mexico hoped to have certified results late Friday, while a dispute in Ohio over a new voter identification law will delay results in one race until past Thanksgiving weekend.

Elections in Louisiana and Texas will go to runoffs in December.

And in Florida, a judge is holding hearings over ballots used by electronic voting machines that recorded a much higher number of undervotes in the close contest to replace GOP Rep. Katherine Harris. The Associated Press called that race for Republican Vern Buchanan.

The outcome of these races won't give Republicans a new chance to take back the majority in Congress that Democrats won Election Day, since Democrats have too big a margin of control. And most of the races are in seats already held by the GOP.

Right now, Democrats hold 232 seats and Republicans hold 198 seats _ excluding five House seats where the outcome is uncalled (and not the Louisiana runoff, since it will remain Democrat regardless of who wins).

Still to be called are:

_ New Mexico, 1st District: Republican Rep. Heather Wilson led Democrat Patricia Madrid by just over 1,100 votes out of more than 200,000 cast. Officials hoped to finish counting roughly 1,500 remaining votes by late Friday.

_ North Carolina, 8th District: Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican, led Democrat Larry Kissell by 376 votes, a gap that had shrunk after seven counties reported their final results Friday. Results were still pending from three counties and the race appeared headed to a recount.

_ Ohio, 2nd District: Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Republican who called decorated Vietnam veteran Rep. John Murtha a coward, was ahead of Democrat Victoria Wulsin by about 2,800 votes. Workers were to begin counting as many as 10,000 provisional and absentee ballots next week.

_ Ohio, 15th District: Rep. Deborah Pryce, a member of the House Republican leadership, leads Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,536 votes. Thousands of provisional ballots need to be recounted, but results won't be announced until Nov. 27 because of a dispute over a new voter identification law.

In addition, runoffs will pick the officeholder in Louisiana, where Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, the subject of an FBI bribery investigation, will face fellow Democrat Karen Carter in a Dec. 9 runoff; and in Texas, where GOP Rep. Henry Bonilla will face Democratic former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in a yet-unscheduled runoff to happen no sooner than Dec. 12.

In North Carolina, attorneys for Hayes _ a four-term congressman who found himself in a much closer race with Kissell, a schoolteacher _ have petitioned to have most provisional ballots thrown out because of missing signatures, Social Security numbers or other mistakes. Provisional ballots are filled out by voters whose names do not show up on precinct rolls on Election Day, and Democrats are counting on those votes to erase Hayes' margin.

"A desperate Robin Hayes is trying to disqualify valid voters who have the right to have their vote counted," North Carolina Democratic chair Jerry Meek said in a statement.

In the Florida contest to replace GOP Rep. Katherine Harris, The Associated Press called the race for Republican Vern Buchanan. But the state has yet to certify he was the winner, with unofficial votes showing him ahead of Democrat Christine Jennings by 400 votes after a manual recount.

A judge is holding hearings in Sarasota County, where touch-screen voting machines recorded that 13 percent of voters did not choose either Buchanan or Jennings, despite casting ballots in other races on the ballot. That rate was much higher than other counties in the district.