Posted on 11/07/2008 2:47:02 PM PST by Caleb1411
When the polls closed Tuesday evening, Minnesota's Secretary of State's office showed that Norm Coleman had a 725-vote win in his closely contested race against Al Franken. By the next morning, however, Coleman's victory was already shrinking. As various precincts and county auditors have "corrected" their totals, Coleman's lead has dropped to a mere 237 votes. Minnesota Republicans are concerned that the fix may be in.
An example of the kind of thing now going on was reported in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Just as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was explaining to reporters the recount process in one of the narrowest elections in Minnesota history, an aide rushed in with news: Pine County's Partridge Township had revised its vote total upward -- another 100 votes for Democratic candidate Al Franken, putting him within .011 percentage points of Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.
The reason for the change? Exhausted county officials had accidentally entered 24 for Franken instead of 124 when the county's final votes were tallied at 5:25 Wednesday morning.
Currently, the Minnesota Secretary of State's office shows the Franken's total in Partridge Township as 129, not 124. Still, the Partridge story is the most coherent explanation we've gotten so far as to why vote totals have repeatedly been adjusted to Franken's advantage.
Optical scan ballots are used nearly everywhere in Minnesota. The system is simple: once the polls close, absentee ballots are run through the machines with Republican and Democratic poll watchers both present. The machines are then locked down. The machine prints a tape that looks like a grocery store printout that summarizes the number of votes cast for each candidate in each race. At the same time, the totals are uploaded electronically, via a secure phone line connected to the box, to the county where the precinct is located; from there, they are reported to the Secretary of State. The tape showing the precinct's vote totals is signed by the precinct's election judge and is required to be publicly displayed.
There is essentially no human input here. There is no room for new ballots to be "discovered," or for counting "errors" to be corrected. The process is electronic. My understanding had been that optical scan voting is in use in every one of Minnesota's several thousand precincts. Based on the Strib's account of what happened in Partridge Township, it appears this may not be the case.
Some very basic questions need to be answered. What are the precincts that have allegedly "corrected" the vote totals they originally reported? On what basis were the alleged corrections made? Did both Republicans and Democrats participate in the alleged corrections? Have the original paper ballots been securely maintained since the polls closed? What assurances are in place to prevent Democrats from fraudulently adding new paper ballots? Do the precincts that have revised their vote totals use the optical scan system that is, as I understand it, nearly universal? If not, why not? If so, what do the ballot machines' tapes show? If the totals now being claimed are inconsistent with the tapes that were signed by the precinct's election judges, on what basis can they be accepted? Why is it that each "correction" seems to favor Franken?
The Coleman campaign has reportedly dispatched volunteers to try to guard the security of ballots in some locations. The danger, of course, is that they could already be too late. Minnesota's Secretary of State, a left-wing activist who was elected in 2006 after MoveOn.org and other nationwide groups targeted the Minnesota Secretary of State race, has yet to certify vote totals. If fraud is to be committed, it most likely has taken place already, or will occur before the recount begins.
UPDATE: Hot off the press, the first apparent evidence of fraud. Last night at around 7:30, a precinct in Mountain Iron, St. Louis County, mysteriously updated its vote total to add 100 new votes--all 100 for Barack Obama and Al Franken.
Mountain Iron uses optical scanning, so the Coleman campaign asked for a copy of the tape documenting the ballots cast on election night. St. Louis County responded by providing a tape that includes the newly-added 100 votes, and is dated November 2--the Sunday before the election. St. Louis County reportedly denies being able to produce the genuine tape from election night, even though Minnesota law, as I understand it, requires that tape to be signed by the election judges and publicly displayed.
Maybe there is some legitimate explanation for these events, but I haven't thought of one yet. More to come.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
I remember that well. I was working on Thune’s campaign at the time. Funny how things ‘just happen’. Of course, all the free coats given to the Rez by Mrs. Johnson didn’t hurt.
You’re right.......it’s always the democrat votes that show up the next day. Odd, that.
Got a call from the Coleman recount fund and donated. They are keeping visual contact with the ballots in all precincts until the lawyers get in town. Pretty sure the actual count is now over - Coleman by 236 and the recount will likely start in December.
For those that followed the thread election night, it was in fact the St. Louis (Buhl precinct) and Pine counties (deep blue) that had the discrepancies. There was one count of 24 that was a ‘typo’ and changed to “124”. My guess someone added the “1”. Sigh....
I know you are kidding. I recall an election in Thailand in 1994. My BIL was "mayor" of a quiet village in the far north. One morning as he was leaving the house, he stuck a roll of 100 bht bills (Thai money) in one of his jacket pockets and a .38 revolver in the other. He said, "Some people need a little more than a bribe for their vote." He won reelection handily as did his boss, the district Kamnan.
We may be going that direction here. Chicago may have been there for many years.
Thank you for the exact quote. I knew “tyrants” were in there too.
The first count is almost always the correct (or most correct count). Even if vote counts were indeed changing, they should change up or down proportionally for each candidate. In these cases, they seen to be change for only Frankin; in counties that appear to be Democrat counties where there should have been no initial errors. There is no plausable reason they would have written 27 rather than 127. They would have double checked. Coleman needs to hire lawyers not poll watchers. With this much discrepancy, they need to do an entire do over. Then hire poll watchers to descend on each of the various precincts.
Do some research on Rossi (R) vs Gregoire (D) ; governors election 2004.
If history repeats, they’ll just keep counting until the person they want (D) wins.
Yep.
The only time I saw the Republicans fight with everything they had was in 2000 when they refused to let the scumbag rats steal the presidency. I don't remember any other time the GOP didn't fold like a cheap suit as an election was stolen right out from under them.
Amazing, isn't it, how recounts always result in the rats "finding" enough votes to win?
“What are we going to do about the massive cheating in this country?”
Through the Constitutional provisions, but the protections and enforcement of which will be left to those who benefit from the fruad.
Regretably, it also seems that the only path to regaining the great vision our Founding Fathers bestowed upon this magnificent land will be by the same method they were required to employ. Just as in their day, some majority of the citizenry will not be willing to sacrifice all that it might take to accomplish that worthy task and the burden will be borne by the brave few.
Six years ago I refused to vote for former Democrat Coleman, so certain I was that he’d win anyway. I’m so glad I changed my ways this time. Who knew Franken would be more of a threat than Wellstone/Mondale?
“It should not be the case that all of the ‘corrections’ are favoring one candidate, right? If numerous precincts have ‘ corrections’ that all favor the Demagogue candidate then that should be a prima facie indication that something suspicious is going on....”
You have a problem when people like Lori Swanson and Mark Ritchie are in positions of responsibility.
“They know what they’re doing and they ALWAYS win the close ones.”
Not in 2000! We got SCOTUS to jump in and steal it back for us (or so they claim).
Yep! Just hope it happens in my lifetime. That's when _we_ get to 'vote' more than once ;-)
Maybe not. Can we citizens do something? Raise up people left and right to stand side by side as to watch each other and police the polling places and the tallying places? Or call in third party watchers from other countries. Something!!!
I share your frustration, my friend. Check your tag line.
You are correct, and that is why in New Hampshire paper ballots are required by law, and any recount is done solely from the paper ballots by hand.
But the accuracy of the scanners and their printouts on election day still matters. How would you know to even ask for a recount if the machines miscounted? Or, as has been demonstrated for the Accuvote machines, counted correctly but printed a tape with incorrect results.
Amazingly, researchers have found that the Accuvote machines use a version of the BASIC programming language to control the print formatting of the report tape. And the version used includes arithmetic operations, branching, etc. so the code which is generating the printout of results can have operations like "vote_total_to_print = Republican_votes * .90".
Obviously that's a bad design, and a doorway to fraud.
Source at University of Connecticut Voting Technology Research Center
When they do these recounts do any pubbie votes come in.
Seems that it’s bits and patches of all Dems.
Do they throw in any pubbie votes to make it look clean??
No doubt you will have a visit from homeland security because some DU’er saw this and reported you. Have fun with that.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” —Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
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