Posted on 11/09/2010 6:54:11 PM PST by Nachum
Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, may be involved in a serious, but so far unreported conflict of interest.
One of Ritchie's responsibilities is to supervise the re-count of very closely contested state elections. With the power to decide which ballots may be counted as valid, Ritchie effectively has the power to decide the outcome of closely fought races.
This drew national attention in early 2009, when Ritchie handed a critical U.S. Senate seat to Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (the Minnesota affiliate of the Democratic Party) candidate and former comedian Al Franken, though Republican Norm Coleman had been ahead on election night.
Now Ritchie is set to supervise another tight re-count, a two-way race for the Minnesota governorship. The leading contender in this race is another far left Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (D.F.L.) member, far left former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton.
Yet while adjudicating the outcome of their races, Mark Ritchie serves on the advisory committee of a far left, D.F.L./Democratic Party/socialist affiliated organization with both Franken and Dayton.
The organization in question is Wellstone Action, an organization established to carry on the radical leftist agenda of late D.F.L. Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
Mark Ritchie, Al Franken and Mark Dayton are listed as members of the Wellstone Action Advisory Committee as are several leftist heavy hitters including;
In 1990 D.S.A.'s Democratic Left, November/December issue, page 5 stated;
Twin cities DSA in Minnesota continues its resurgence with ongoing support of Paul Wellstone's campaign for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Rudy Boschwitz. Local activists are doing literature drops and helping to raise money for this watershed campaign...As a professor at Carlton College, Wellstone has mentored many DSA Youth Section activists...Contributions, made out to Wellstone for U.S. Senate, can be sent to the DSA national Office and will be forwarded to the campaign.Mark Ritchie is clearly involved in a organization that is clearly pro D.F.L./Democratic Party and is heavily influenced by D.S.A. and Institute for Policy studies aligned socialists.
Mark Ritchie, campaigning 2008The fact that Mark Ritchie helped put one fellow Wellstone Action Advisory Committee member Al Franken into the US Senate and may soon put another, Mark Dayton, into the Minnesota Governor's mansion, should be ringing alarm bells all over the state.
Why is a man, with such close connections to two prominent candidates being entrusted with overseeing their electoral re-counts?
Talk about the fox guarding the chicken coop.
In this day and age, we could easily have elections that are settled beyond any doubt on election night, even when very close. It is very simple arithmetic, and votes should either be in our out. The dems just have too much interest in gaming the system to ever let it go to that.
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