Posted on 12/16/2008 12:01:59 PM PST by tomymind
Minnesota State Canvassing Board review of challenged ballots in the U.S. Senate race
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Does anybody know what the current vote tally is?
do they have to review each ballot that way? (vote on each?). The chairman’s voice is more painful than Franken’s
The chairman is a communist.
some guy is sitting there eating chocolate cookies
i move to reject the entire pile and allocate the vote to ‘too stoopid to vote’.
Where are the representatives of the “people of color?” You just know Franken will scream of racism if he loses to these white people on these ballots.
Mickey Mouse voted for Franken.
Doesn't matter...they'll quit when the Dems win.
BINGO!
This is an SNL skit, right?
Current margin:
Coleman
+218
Ballots reviewed:56
The State Canvassing Board really screwed up on Friday. First it allowed the 133 ballots found "missing" in Hennepin County to be counted (netting Franken 46 votes) - what the hell is the purpose of a recount if you're going to count phantom votes? How do we even know these ballots actually existed?
Secondly, the Board went along with (I believe) the ACORN Secretary of State's suggestion for each of the 87 counties to make independent determinations about whether rejected absentee ballots were done so properly. This allows each county to come up with their own standards - back to Florida 2000 (although not quite as bad). According to the guys at PowerLine, one county is going to count ballots that were not properly signed because the election judge signed it, and the election judge should have spotted the error when receiving the ballot and had the voter sign. Crap. That is clearly an invalid vote and should not be counted. The Minnesota Supreme Court appears to be going along with this folly.
This whole process, which I have previously defended in earlier threads, is descending into Florida 2000 and Washington 2004. The law in Minnesota is very, very clear that if Franken wants to look at the rejected absentee ballots, he must do so through the filing of an election challenge after the State Canvassing Board looks through the challenged ballots and certifies the election. He doesn’t want to wait because for public relations issues, because if the election is certified for Coleman, he’ll most likely begin to lose public support by filing a lawsuit.
But that’s what Minnesota law requires, and for obvious reasons - the uniform determination of which ballots were improperly rejected, and judicial review. When the District Court judge makes a determination about a ballot, either campaign can seek review of that judge’s determination through appeal. The ballots don’t get opened and counted until final review has been made. But the way things are now, people with partisan political intent - on both sides of the aisle - can taint this process. Liberals seem to miss the point that in order to have fair and valid elections, the process must be beyond reproach. But it appears to be win at all cost, damn public confidence.
I thought it was Coleman 600 Friday??
Ping
I am going to tell my kids to challenge the results of scantron tests they take in school if they do not get a 100% correct.
Norm Coleman leads by 239 votes
91 challenged ballots reviewed
as of Tuesday, 3:28 pm
The Star Tribune is projecting that Franken will net more than 300 votes in the challenge process providing him a lead of 140 votes or so. I hope that the Star Tribune is wrong about the projection. I am surprised that the projection involves a large gain for Franken. I had thought that the challenges would net just a small amount of votes for one candidate.
My understanding is that they are counting the Micky Mouse, and Daffy Duck vote. There’s an AP story at GOPUSA.com that I can’t cut and paste.
Keep in mind that the projections are coming from reviewing actual ballots at the comment section on the website, people who reviewed the ballots themselves came to the same conclusion - Franken will pick up a lot of votes. This really has nothing to do with statistical projections - Franken simply had more voters incapable of properly filling out their ballots. We’ll see.
Yup
Any votes that would favor Coleman will be conveniently “misplaced” forever. Count on it.
Minn. Supreme Court intervenes in recount case
AP
Posted on 12/15/2008 3:07:25 PM PST by Chet 99
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2149259/posts
I get the idea. Anyone who has voted for both Coleman and Franken voted for Franken. Barkley’s votes should go to Franken. Any smudge was a vote for Franken.
“Ballots reviewed:56”
How did those ballots split? That is what is critical right now. Were they all Franken?
ping
Wasn’t this complete clusterf*** supposed to be resolved by December 15th?
Or until it's bought, like the Presidential election.
OMG! They have sample challenged ballots. The one I looked at had Norm Coleman completely and thoroughly blacked in and there was a tiny little line on Franken’s name, obviously the voter touched his pen on Franken’s oval and realized it was the wrong name. How this ballot could be challenged in any way is beyond comprehension. It is obviously for Coleman. The voter also voted for McCain/Palin.
http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/becker_DetroitTwp_challengedballot3_F.pdf
Whatever the case may be, it’s highly likely Franken will be seated as Senator. I refuse to use the term “win” because he will not have - he will have stolen it. The primary theft occurred shortly after the election when Coleman’s 700+ vote lead shrunk to 200 by the time the media reported the statistically impossible events.
Make no mistake - we are inching ever closer to “Banana Republic” status.
This is past insanity. Franken should be charged $10,000 for each challenge that obviously isn’t worth challenging. I still can’t figure out what was worth challenging on Goodview 2, ballot 2. No mark at all on Franken; Coleman clearly marked. The person wrote in an obscenity for his mayoral choice. Other than that, I don’t see the problem.
I’m surprised that the idiot who voted for Obama, Nader AND Barr didn’t include McKinney. Obama and Nader rated two marks each. Poor Barr, only got one scribbled mark. However, in this one, Franken is clearly and solely marked in the senate section. I would be suspicious as to why the voter didn’t turn this botched one in and start over. Or was it and it wasn’t destroyed as it should’ve been?
Another FReeper (flattorney) makes the truthful case why we’re in this situation - MN SOS is a Commie in the bag for 0
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2148122/posts
But this is pretty pathetic, calling this an overvote, unless I'm missing something.
That did it.
Although the statute seems to require intent:
Subd. 13.Identifying ballot.If a ballot is marked by distinguishing characteristics in a manner making it evident that the voter intended to identify the ballot, the entire ballot is defective.The Star-Tribune is reporting...
Do not count these votes if ...The latter doesn't say "intent to identify" is required. I don't know if the Star-Tribune is twisting the statute, or are reporting how the Canvassing Board is interpreting the statute.
[...]
A voter places an identifying mark on the ballot, such as writing their initials or making a statement of some kind. (That does not include election judges’ initials.)
I wonder if these bozos realize their stunt got their ballot pulled and bogged the process down.
It's good that they are not letting those frivolous challenges hold things up now, though...as long as intent on candidate is clear and there's no intent to identify a ballot when a mark (such as "Mickey Mouse") is made, then the ballot shouldn't be challenged on those grounds.
Yes, that is pathetic to call that an overvote. A tiny dot on the edge of Franken’s “hole” and a fully filled in blackness in Coleman’s. If these votes are actually not being counted for stuff like this, then something’s really wrong. There’s absolutely no doubt who that voter was voting for. I assume the counting machine counted this ballot correctly, but when they were hand counted it was pulled. If so, this is outrageous!
They actually have a pretty cool feature that (if you register) allows you to see all 6000+ ballots and vote on them yourself. They’re pooling the results of other people’s votes to come up with their own tally. I made it through about 130. They’d feed you random ballots and you could vote Coleman, Franken, Other, Under, Over, etc.
Hardly Scientific. But when I was going through them at about 3 this afternoon, the conglomeration of votes from the masses had Franken winning by 40.
Coleman up by 267 (175 ballots reviewed) now. The more they
count and recount, the better Coleman does. Now what does a
Franken do?? Just declare himself the Senator? It could happen!
Oops...up 269...my bad!
The law be damned. Political results are all Dems care about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.