The preliminary count of yesterday's vote in Louisiana's 4th district resulted in Republican John Fleming receiving 356 more votes than Democrat Paul Carmouche but to his credit Carmouche won't concede.

"For me to concede at this point would be foolish. We've spent a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of time in this race, and there are provisional ballots that we don't believe have been counted yet because they don't usually count those (immediately after a race). Democrats usually win those by large margins so the fat lady hasn't sung yet in this thing," he said.

Jacques Berry, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office, said the complete but unofficial returns do not include provisional ballots - paper ballots filled out by people who arrived at their precincts, intending to vote, but whose names did not appear on the official registry. Those votes and absentee paper ballots would be included on Tuesday, when all vote totals are added together again and certified.

In addition, Carmouche said he expects to request a recount once all ballots have been counted.

Louisiana law has no provision for an automatic recount, Berry said, though a losing candidate can request one. [...]

...after all 640 precincts were counted, Carmouche said he planned to ask for a recount of the ballots.

You didn't want this to be over yet anyway, did you?

There's more...

Today is the final election day of the 2008 election cycle. Sigh...

In LA-04, the Northwestern most Louisiana district, Democrat Paul Carmouche is going up against John Fleming to replace Republican Jim McCrery in the House.

As Brownsox noted yesterday, the polls have really been all over the place, so this is considered a true toss-up, which is actually fairly remarkable since McCain won the district by 19 points.

And as DailyKingfish reminds us, as with all non-election day elections, this is all about turnout.

This race is going to hinge on the turnout. The DCCC has been active ... sending folks to the district, and utilizing their volunteer base to remind folks to vote. President-elect Obama has been less involved, cutting a radio ad to remind folks to vote, but his campaign team did send out two or three emails for funds and volunteers.

The Republicans have been active, sending Vice-President Cheney to raise money, and I'm sure they've got folks on the ground as well.

Turnout, according to various sources, has been "leisurely."

You can help LA-04 voters turnout for Carmouche using the DCCC's virtual phonebank, which will be in full effect today.

Use this as an LA-04 election day thread. Any news? Are you there on the ground? Throw it in the comments.

There's more...

What, you thought the 2008 election cycle was over?

This Saturday, Louisiana will go to the polls to vote in two congressional races that were delayed by Hurricane Gustav: LA-02, where William Jefferson (D-Cold Hard Cash) is the incumbent and LA-04 where Republican Rep. Jim McCrery is retiring. Only the latter is considered competitive. The Pollster trend estimate has Democrat Paul Carmouche up over Republican John Fleming by less than 3% (although that may have been seriously skewed by a rogue internal poll that showed Carmouche up 11 points.)

Although this race has a far lower profile than the GA-Sen run-off, it has still attracted the big guns:

Cameos by President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney have brought star power to a hurricane-delayed battle between Democrats and Republicans for an up-for-grabs U.S. House seat.

Obama recorded a radio ad to help Democrat Paul Carmouche, while Cheney helped with fundraising and GOP up-and-comer Gov. Bobby Jindal helped with a television ad for Republican candidate John Fleming.

I'm surprised Sarah Palin hasn't made an appearance, Lord knows she delivered Georgia to Saxby!

Two days out from election day, once again we have an opportunity to paint a little swath of blue in one of the reddest of red states and it would certainly be a bit of consolation for having lost Cazayoux's seat on Nov. 4th. So what can we do?

The DCCC is asking for our help.

The last race of the year -- the hurricane-delayed election in Louisiana's 4th District -- is this Saturday.  The AP calls the race "up-for-grabs" and says it'll be about who can get more of their voters to the polls.

That's where you come in.

Help us win this last race of the year: remind supporters to vote through our virtual phonebank.

It's simple: we'll give you a short list of voters to call and some points to mention as you remind voters about the upcoming election.  These calls will make a huge difference in this neck-and-neck race.

You can access the virtual phone bank tool HERE.

Republicans are already spinning Chambliss's win on Tuesday as evidence that Obama has no mandate. Right. Let's nip that narrative in the bud by delivering President-elect Obama one more seat to his majority in the House.

Help send Paul Carmouche to Congress today.

There's more...