DNC Chairman Howard Dean has weighed in on the contested House race in Sarasota, Fla. -- and you shouldn't be surprised at what screamin' Howie says.

Republican Vern Buchanan might be the official winner in a messy Sarasota-area congressional race, but Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean says the Democratic-controlled Congress should not seat Buchanan without another election.

"Absolutely not," Dean said in a taped Political Connections interview scheduled to air Sunday on Bay News 9. "You cannot seat someone if you don't have an election that's valid.

"This election is not valid. There are 18,000 people who may have voted, and we don't know what happened to their votes," Dean said. "You can bet that if the Republicans were 500 votes short they'd be calling for a new election, and they'd be right."

Au contraire -- Republicans wouldn't be calling for a new election. See 2004 Washington Governor's race where the Republican "lost" by less than 200 votes after King County kept "finding" enough votes to give the race to the Democrat.