Posted on 12/18/2008 4:44:52 PM PST by cdchik123
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The tight Minnesota U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken has become incredibly close -- with Coleman clinging to a two-vote lead.
That's the latest tally after the state Canvassing Board spent a third day ruling on disputed ballots. There are hundreds of challenges yet to decide, as well as thousands of withdrawn challenges that have yet to be tallied.
Coleman had entered Thursday's session leading Franken by 360 votes. But that lead eroded all day as the board considered a pile of challenges brought entirely by the Coleman campaign. The pile included a big chunk of withdrawn challenges, many of which went quickly to Franken's column.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The nature of the challenges (e.g., voter intent is clear, identifying mark, etc.) that Franken and Coleman are putting up differ.
In general, there were more Franken ballots that the machine wrongly threw out than Coleman ones. For example, if a voter selects Franken, but then scribbles out Coleman's name and bubble, it would register as an overvote, even though the hand count would count it for Franken (based on the obvious intent). Coleman voters were less likely to do that.
"It is obvious that I lead in the official vote tally, but it is equally obvious that the Demagogues will 'recount' and 'recount' and 'recount' until they get the outcome they desire. Let's all save ourselves a lot of trouble and expense, and acknowledge right now that Al Frankenstein will steal this election!"
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present, from the stupid state of Minnesota, Senator Stuart Smalley.....
"It is obvious that I lead in the official vote tally, but it is equally obvious that the Demagogues will 'recount' and 'recount' and 'recount' until they get the outcome they desire. Let's all save ourselves a lot of trouble and expense, and acknowledge right now that Al Frankenstein will steal this election!"
All of those look like fair Franken votes for me. If he won fair and square, that’s the fault of the people who voted for him. Where I have problems are where more than one candidate is marked and it’s not 100% clear which one they really meant and with the strong possibility of manufactured fraudulent votes for Franken.
By Minnesota law, those are all CLEARLY ballots that should be counted for Franken, except PERHAPS for the seond one, which would require additional look at the whole ballot face to confirm whether the X was an attempt to cross out the oval, or not.
If FReepers don't like the state's law, then they should push for reform of it...not advocate just ignoring it.
If Al Franken wins this thing, listen for the trumpets, because it’ll be the end of the world.
This will shift back when those challenges which Franken has rescinded are tallied. They should have simply counted the rescinded challenges first and then began looking at the contested ballots.
FU MN
Told ya so from the beginning.
If the American people don’t fight for their country now, it’s gone along with our freedom, our security, our future. It’s not looking good to me.
Why is Franken and the Dems having such a hard time stealing this election? Didn’t they learn anything from King County Washington?
Surely there are a couple pets or dead in the cemetery that have yet to get their vote counted.
Don’t panic yet. Withdrawn challenges are not yet clearly in the count. Franken withdrew many more than Coleman. They’ll be added back eventually.
Part of them are the absentee votes that Coleman wants to block
Coleman should quit. Heck. Franken is going to “fart” ballots to win this thing.
Those are all probably legitimate Franken votes. Made by morons, perhaps, but unfortunately that doesn’t matter.
My understanding is that the only remaining undetermined votes there are disputed absentee ballots numbering about 1,600. Further, from what samples I’ve seen, they appear to favor Wankin (Cranken? Frankenstein? You pick) by at least 2:1, and if anything I’m erring to Coleman’s advantage there. It also helps Franken that Minnesota law allows counting ballots filled out incorrectly, but where the voters’ intent can be “discerned” (where of course the counters’ will comes in): Franken’s camp has been pretty candid that his supporters are less educated and more likely to botch their votes. This looks bad. What a nightmare. Franken’s as mad as a hatter; dig those crazy eyes. The really awful thing is that Minnesota is known for unusually clean politics; this means the Rats can screw us anywhere.
What has happened to this country is that it has become an absolute joke. People get the government they deserve, and if you haven’t been paying attention the past few months, the American people have proven themselves to be short sighted, mindless, idiots who are suckers for anyone with “name recognition”. Should come as no surprise that this is happening. It will only get worse.
Yup.
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