The Wall Street Journal has a great editorial today that sums up exactly why the recount in the Minnesota Senatorial race stinks to high heaven. It's truly eerie how similar the circumstances are to the 2004 Washington governor's race recount, in which at least one of Franken's advisors also participated.
Senator Coleman had better line up some heavy-hitter election lawyers, because this race is being stolen right out from under him. There's just no rational way statistically for Franken to have made up the vote deficit he had, and then actually pull hundreds of votes ahead.
"This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote."
That there's called Chicago-style vote counting. Ask the Messiah. He'll explain how it works.
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4 comments:
I agree about the precincts with more votes than recorded ballots, but there is one way for Franken to have won sort of honestly.
The kind of nincompoops who apparently cannot figure out how to fill out a ballot properly overwhelmingly voted for Franken.
Fits, doesn't it?
This note takes as truth the errors in the Wall Street Journal editorial. The number of ballots in these precincts above that of the signed-in voters equals the number of improperly-rejected absentee ballots that were later accepted and counted. It is this kind of nincompoopery that makes the WSJ editorial page not worth reading.
The recount effort was witnessed by both campaigns, and any ballot that was not agreed to by both sides was dealt with in public by the canvassing board. Everything was done in public. Not all decisions were to the liking of both sides, but they were not done under cloak of darkness.
The issues in the challenge that Coleman has made are certain absentee ballots that they thought should have been counted that were not (funny, because the Coleman campaign initially didn't want any improperly-rejected absentee ballots counted) and one precinct where an envelope of ballots was lost, so the original tally from election night was used.
Many people wanting to make a stink about this process say that ballots were found in a Franken supporter's trunk later. False; those were absentee ballots that could not be delivered in time to the precinct that should count them; they were returned to the county office and counted in the recount. There have been so many tall tales told about the recount that it would be hilarious, except that so many people uncritically believe them.
I agree with this blog's stands on gun rights, police accountability, privacy, and Illinois politics, but disagree about Obama and your nearly-blind hatred of Democrats (I noticed the article about the Democrat you could bring yourself to vote for if he abandoned card-check, which I also do not like). However, glorifying the WSJ story (in this case, story in the fiction sense, almost) isn't something I agree with.
Thanks for your kind words about the other topics discussed here.
I still maintain that hand recounts that attempt to divine "voter intent" have no place in an election that uses optical scanning. The rules in place on Election Day state that one must fill out a ballot in a manner sufficient to record the choice mechanically, so if one fails to reasonably do so, they should forfeit that choice on their ballot. I would have the same stance if Franken had been ahead in the initial count.
I agree with you about the "trunk" ballots. It sounds like an election official was simply doing the best she could under the circumstances. However, the fact that so many precincts are counting more ballots than registered voters is curious, to say the least, and Coleman is correct to seek legal relief to investigate, in my opinion.
"and one precinct where an envelope of ballots was lost"
Inexcusable.
By the way, I do not have a "nearly-blind hatred of Democrats". What I will admit to is a completely blind hatred for the liberal agenda, which is mostly expressed on the Democratic side of the aisle. There are some signs of hope from that party, however. People such as Heath Shuler, Jon Tester and the aforementioned Harry Mitchell give me reason to hope that the Democrats can someday abandon their far-left leadership and come back to more reasonable positions. Come on, even you must admit the likes of Pelosi, Frank and Dodd give you the creeps.
Thanks for commenting, though, and please do so more often. You make me think, and that's always a good thing.
Agreed. I also hate *most* democrats, but only the ones that go along with the party-line of gun bans, more welfare, more spending, more nanny state. For example, last year in Iowa 3 Democrats HID IN A BATHROOM so that they wouldn't have to vote against a bill on which they had voted YES in committee, contradicting themselves. The rest of the vote went straight party-line, with every single Democrat that didn't run and hide in a bathroom voting against it. This was for a shall-issue weapons permit law, and those 3 votes would have passed it if they had not chosen to run away like cowards or let their party dictate their votes.
We have some good democrats around, but many of those sadly seem to do their best to placate the party-line instead of voting what they believe, whenever they can away with it.
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