SOS in Minnesota

American Spectator ^ | November 7, 2008 | Matthew Vadum

[reaganaut1]

As Democrats nationwide try to make the climb to a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate by pursuing recounts, an outspoken ACORN ally presides over the tallying of votes in the still-unresolved Minnesota Senate race.

The fact that Mark Ritchie, a Democrat and former community organizer, largely controls the electoral process in the Land of 10,000 Lakes may be important.

That's because at press time incumbent Republican Norm Coleman led Democrat Al Franken by just 341 votes and the Democrats controlled 57 seats in the Senate, compared to the Republicans' 40. The Senate races in Alaska and Georgia also have yet to be resolved, though in both the Republicans are leading and are expected to win in the end.

The Minnesota seat is the only one that Democrats could try to steal. Every seat closer to 60 gives President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers an opportunity to permanently alter America's political, economic, and cultural landscape.

Both Franken and Obama, by the way, were endorsed by ACORN Votes, ACORN's federal political action committee.

Minnesota's secretary of state isn't a Democrat by happenstance.

Ritchie, who defeated two-term incumbent Republican Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006, received an endorsement and financial assistance for his run from a below-the-radar non-federal "527" group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.

The founders of the Secretary of State Project, which claims to advance "election protection" but only backs Democrats, religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 (Katherine Harris) and in Ohio in 2004 (Ken Blackwell).

[Martins kid]

Have they counted military absentee votes yet?

[Humal]

Is anyone watching out for Coleman’s interests? Why can’t/don’t they stop this “count until we get the results we want”?

[maica]

No hanging chads possible. Anyone who’s taken a machine scored test in school understands the mechanics involved in casting a vote. And, to top it off, when you insert your ballot into the box, it is electronically scanned.

@@@@@

Here is where you are seeing the ‘rules’ from a different perspective than the people who are going to do the recount. Of course, an optical scanner counts the votes when the correct number of circles are filled in.

The Secretary of State is not going to refeed these correctly completed ballots into machines again, but is going to ‘scrutinize’ each ballot for the INTENT of the voter. I heard him say on a newscast “some people make an “x” and some people make a “check” and some people make a mark “near” the bubble. These will all be counted.”

These marks are not read by the optical scanner, but the ballot is not spit out, the ballot is just registered as a “no vote” for that particular contest. Most of these improperly filled in, and not counted by the scanner, votes will be for Al Franken. Bet on it!