Well, CLEARLY these nearly disenfranchised (disenFrankened?) voters intended to vote for Franken as well.
They just couldn't find Stuart Smalley's name on the ballot.
Posted on 11/07/2008 8:05:18 PM PST by reaganaut1
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An Associated Press analysis of votes in the tight, still-to-be decided race for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota shows that most ballots lacking a recorded choice in the election were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.
The finding could have implications for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, who are headed for a recount separated by the thinnest of margins — a couple of hundred votes, or about 0.01 percent.
About 25,000 ballots statewide carried votes for president but not for the Senate race. Although some voters might have intentionally bypassed the race, others might have mismarked their ballot, or optical scanning machines might have misread them.
A recount due to begin Nov. 19 will use manual inspection to detect such ballots.
Meanwhile, Coleman is using the state's open records law to ask Minnesota and all 87 counties for access to voting data and other records, questioning gains Franken has made since Election Day.
Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan complained of "statistically dubious and improbable shifts that are overwhelmingly accruing to the benefit of Al Franken."
The Coleman campaign cited a 100-vote gain that Franken picked up from Mountain Iron, in St. Louis County, on Thursday night.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said it was unfortunate that the Coleman campaign was questioning the integrity of the election, noting that adjustments are a normal part of the canvassing process.
Paul Tynjala, St. Louis County's director of elections, said the change in results from Mountain Iron was because of a human call-in error on election night that incorrectly gave Franken 406 votes, instead of 506 votes.
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.google.com ...
Don’t waste your money. The fix is in.
Which means nothing since a local study done by a radio station reviewing seven voting districts on the Iron Range shows that ballots marked for Obama had a much higher rate of votes cast for Coleman than was expected. They better not be trying to mind read based on the ballot selection from other races.
Just ask Mr. Rossi in Washington state. The RATS will keep counting until Al comes out on top.
That’s exactly what they tried to do in Florida with Gore, where they had marked for the Dem Senator, but no one for the Presidency. Gore wanted those counted, because “of course” they meant to vote for him b/c they voted for the Democrat in another race.
Anyways, I heard of many people in early voting lines taking just 2, 3 seconds to vote...ostensibly they marked for Obama, and thats it.
"Adjustments" is such a wonderful euphemism.
I hate to say it, but I think you’re right. Franken is very likely to win this, because we’ve seen it happen before. The Democrats will keep recounting until they find enough votes. Then, as soon as they take the lead, all interest in further recounts will vanish.
It sounds like Minnesota’s ballots are similar to the ones in my state where we use a marker to fill in an arrow to the candidate of our choice. Imagine how easy it would be to do just that on those ballots that left the senate race blank. All it would take is about 15 mins and one person could create the votes necessary to put Franken over the top.
I consider this seat gone.
That’s exactly what will happen if there are that many blank ballots where people didn’t vote on the Senate race.
They will fill it in for Franken.
I think it should not be a suspect ballot if a person didn’t vote for a particular office. You don’t have to vote on everything on the ballot if you don’t want to. Some people go in there, just vote for president, and leave. I hope they don’t turn this into a hanging chad type of thing, where they say they have to “judge the intent of the voter” and all that Florida nonsense. Either they properly marked their ballot or they didn’t. If they didn’t then there’s no vote for that office. It should be simple to resolve.
I leave votes blank all the time. If I’m not informed about a particular candidate, like a judge, I don’t feel it’s right to mark the ballot for that particular race. An uninformed vote could very well help an undeserving person stay in office or vice versa.
I question Mark Ritchie, ACORN activist, and his integrity...
Since they appointed one of Obama’s ACORN buddies to head the recount, Coleman has no chance.
Instead of all this pessimism over watching the cRats stealing another election, y’all need to get out and FReep the SOS.
I KNOW as a poll judge who assisted (or observed) some voters in a democrat precinct that several of them were not interested in any vote on the ballot EXCEPT president.
Well they didn’t exactly APPOINT anyone to the position - Mark Ritchie is Secretary of State, so it is part of his job function.
I read that the more intelligent liberals dreaded Franken winning because they know that Franken is a clown. So who knows how many Obama voters could not bring themselves to vote for Franken? I guess now the Democrats will use their amazing psychic powers to conjure up Franken votes.
Well, CLEARLY these nearly disenfranchised (disenFrankened?) voters intended to vote for Franken as well.
They just couldn't find Stuart Smalley's name on the ballot.
ME too, in IN.
There really are people who will vote for one or two people or issues on a ballot and deliberately leave the left of it blank. People challenging results ignore this and assume that the voter made a mistake.
Yes. Then, they the “devine the intent of the voter.”
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