I agree about not seating Jennings (as much as I want a Democrat who shares my last name).  For one thing, that opens a very big can of worms that may be used against us at a different point.  

Second, we've taken a beating in the news lately.  All we need is the image of overturning an election, no matter how suspicious.

House Democrats should absolutely NOT seat Jennings.

However, if there is sufficient evidence that there were voting machine malfunctions and that these malfunctions clearly hurt Jennings, they should declare the seat empty and call for a new vote.

Hopefully, the courts will do this first and Congress will not need to get involved.

They've done it in the past, seating Frank McClosky in Indiana's "Bloody 8th" back in the 1984, even though McClosky's Republican opponent was the certified winner.

From Wikipedia.org:
In the 1984 election, Rep. McCloskey faced conservative state senator Rick McIntyre. Buoyed by President Reagan's strong coattails, McIntyre trailed McCloskey by only 72 votes after the initial vote count. A tabulation error, however, resulted in an overcounting of McCloskey votes and the Republican Indiana Secretary of State certified McIntyre as the winner by 34 votes, ignoring other recounted tallies that actually showed McCloskey was in the lead. The Democratic-controlled House refused to seat either McIntyre or McCloskey and conducted their own recount. In the end, the House seated McCloskey after declaring him the winner by just four votes (116,645 to 116,641). The vote was largely along partisan lines and in response every Republican House member marched out of the chamber in protest.

In fact, Newt Gingrich came to fame during that Republican walkout.

the conventional process fails to reveal the source and nature of the problem.  The House, in considering whether or not to seat Jennings, could hold hearings and explore what went wrong with the voting machines.  If no definite malfunction or intentional voting abuse is established, then I agree that she should not be seated.  This is too important an opportunity to waste.  Congress needs to use this situation as an opportunity to make clear to the public the dangers of using electronic voting devices without paper backup.

They should declare the seat vacant and ask for a new election.  That is the only fair way.

Do it and fuck the republicans. We owe them nothing, no consideration. Absolutely NONE.

Did the voters intend to elect Jennings?  Of course they did.  There is simply no question as a simple matter of statistics.

But are Dems going to play hardball and seat her?  Of course not.  Not because doing so would be an unfair result or overturn the real results of the election.  No, we're not going to do that because that might look bad and we would get yelled at.

With the old-fashioned mechanical lever machines, you could skew the result for each machine by inserting a piece of chewing gum, or even just a paper match head, in the gears. But you couldn't coordinate this type of operation, and your opponents could do the same to you at another location. Now it's done with tens of millions of lines of computer code, and a large-scale hack can be coordinated. So we should expect to see a vast upsurge of 'razor-thin' margins. A 'paper trail' will not help, for all kinds of tricky technical reasons. The only answer is to use hand-marked ballots. Cheating can still happen, but not in such intricate ways. At least people in long lines will never be told that they have to wait for technicians to come out to repair blue screened computers.

In this situation, the voters, who already went to the trouble of getting out to the voting stations, are clearly owed a chance to go back and do this the right way. With computer voting, this will become commonplace.

Much as I would like to just seat Jennings, stick out my tounge, and be done with it--the media has already branded Pelosi the devil incarnate, what more can they do?--there's something much more valuable to be done here: hold hearings in which the whole sorry mess is held up to the light of day.

And, yes, of course, drag every single Florida official they can lay their hands on through the mud of their own making.

Under oath.

Rule of law!  What a concept!

This is the same damn thing as 2000.

In 2000 More people in florida showed up to vote for Gore than for Bush. Bush stole it, look what happend.

In this race what I am gathering is that there was about an 8% difference Jennings over Buchanan in this county. Even if we just say that there were 10K undervotes, not 18K That is still 800 VOTES. More people showed up to vote for Jennings, and the Republicans are going to steal this again. The HOUSE should seat Jennings, after all, she won... Though, I guess as we are seeing, in FL that doesnt seem to matter.

This is certainly not as important as the 2000 election, but it is a theft just the same.

The following assumes that Florida's courts do not order relief. The proceedings pending there should get first dibs.

Seat neither at least at first, hold hearings to determine what happened, and then decide... though absent provable fraud or proof that machines failed to register actual votes or failed to offer the race to vote on, I would then seat the Republican.

What is most important here isn't who represents FL-13. Rather, it's fixing the problem to the extent possible for the future. This is a unique opportunity to highlight the issues which need to be solved for totally non-partisan reasons. The need to fix can and must have priority over who is seated, and that can be done if the thing is not handled as a power grab and the solution is given priority over the immediate result.

I agree 100%. We have no right to seat Jennings until she actually wins this. Sure there was chicanery here, but that's why this is going to court. It would be unethical for us to just DECIDE Jennings won because there was fraud.

Not that Pelosi would even consider it. I'm sure she is planning to wait till there is an actual winner here.

The voting machines are still available. Can not a verification of what happened be recreated by casting the same votes as recorded, including the "missing" congressional vote and having observers record exactly what shows up as each vote is cast? If this is possible, would it not demonstrate that a large proportion of the electorate did not have the opportunity to vote in that race?

Seat the woman. She won in the same f*cked up district that let to Harris' boobs getting elected anyways. As for ANY reason to look "fair" may I point out The Shrub's new bipartisan renomination of Bolton's Mustache to the UN? Or the appointment of the wingnut in charge of repro $$ at Health and Human Services?

A leopard can't change his spots and a Rethuglican only knows to Win At Any Cost. Democracy be damned.

We must be good democrats and assure fair elections.  Frankly, I beleive in democracy and that is why I am a Democrat.  This is a golden opportunity to investigate the election and the vulnerablities of electronic voting.   While anyone can understand election fraud, electronic voting is a new twist and it has been largely ignored by the media.  We now have a platform for the new congress address electronic voting and its vulnerablities in a real and thoughtful manner.  The media will now cover it because an election is in the balance.  So, refuse to seat anyone until congress investigates.  Let the (computer) chips fall where they may.  If there is evidence of fraud, tampering and/or there can't be a recount because of the machines, then there must be a revote.  But, there must be public open hearings, and we must be clear that the goal is to respect the will of the people and that election fraud cannot be tolerated.  Such hearing are then the starting point for legislative action to address election reform.

The Republicans in this district have chalked the high number of undervotes to the nastiness of the race.  I can see their point that SOME people are in fact turned off and don't vote, but can anyone give a comparison of the number of undervotes in other competitive races?

Just because the Reps would have seated their candidate regardless of the vote and just because they were the most arrogant government in history, doesn't mean we should be.

I agree with the original voter: if a proper recound is necessary, do it, then seat the person who won.  Let's please not turn into a liberal version of the Reps.  We should not only have better ideas for America, but we should govern more responsibly.  If we do, we will be in power for years and win many more elections the good old fashioned way.