If ever an occasion has called for the entirety of the Republican Party, from the most Conservative Republican to the most squishy “Bipartisan”, to rise up and take to the streets, this, the so-called “Recount” being conducted by a supposedly “Bipartisan” canvassing board in Minnesota, is it. The fact that the MNGOP is not running ads, calling daily Press Conferences, and inundating the air waves with loud denunciations of this incredibly blatant abuse of the public trust is incomprehensible.

This is evil with a capital ‘E’ – this is corruption at its worst. And if we let this stand, we might as well just pack everything up and nail the door shut. Because it’s over if we cannot muster up the fighting spirit, if we cannot get the so-called leadership of the GOP to make this right, then 2008 was truly the death knell of the Republican Party.

Does anyone think I’m overreacting? Does anyone think I’m jumping the gun – that we should wait for these #$%@!&!s to finish their so-called “Recount” before we start raising hell?

Everyone please read this article by John Lott on FOX from yesterday. Read the whole thing, go through the links.

The Canvassing Board faces a difficult task in divining voter intentions. It is very difficult to determine how a voter meant to vote simply by looking at what might be stray marks on the ballot. And whatever rules are adopted must be consistently used in evaluating all ballots.

What to do when voters change their minds at the last moment or accidentally fill in the wrong oval? In such a case, the voters are supposed to ask for a new clean ballot. But the board presumes that some voters who change their minds simply put an “X” through the blacked-out oval. Even if the voter doesn’t blacken an oval for another candidate, an “X” through an oval is interpreted as the voter changing his mind. There is a claimed exception to this rule: if all the votes for each candidate that a voter supports are simultaneously marked by both filling in the oval and an “X,” voters are assumed to support those candidates.

The primary problem isn’t the rules. The real problem is the lack of consistency. Take some of the ballots that only marked the oval for Coleman, but where the oval is also marked through with an “X.” The Canvassing Board determined that those marks meant those voters intended to support “other/no one.” Here are a couple of examples, with more here.

Yet, there are a number of cases where the exact same markings for Franken were decided by the Canvassing Board to result in votes for Franken. More can be found here.

But to make the case even more strange, given this rule, what should the board decide when the oval is filled in for Coleman, but the Franken space is marked with an “X”? The board ruled that the vote is for Franken.

Nor can Coleman even win when there is an oval filled in for Coleman and the Constitution Party candidate receives an “X.” In that case, the board determined the support went to “other/no one.”

But if you have an oval filled in for Franken and the Independence Party candidate receives an oval with an “X,” the vote is given to Franken.

There are other cases where the ballots are clearly marked for Coleman, though the marks were relatively small, and the board awarded the votes to no one.

There are still other cases where it is hard to see how the board could legitimately declare certain votes for Franken. For example, a voter filled out neither the oval for Coleman nor for Franken, but colored in the area in between the two candidates. Part of the blob touches the edge of Coleman’s oval and one thin line goes slightly into Franken’s oval, and for 28 other races on the ballot the voter seems to have been able to fill out the required ovals – there is only one other case where he missed. Perhaps the board saw that the voter was voting for other Democrats and used that to help influence its decision, but there were a number of Democrats who voted for Obama and other Democrats, but not Franken.

Still the most obvious classification would have been not for Franken, but for “no one,” what most readers of the Minneapolis Star Tribune thought was the right answer.

Mistakes were also made against Franken, but they were much less common.

I repeat, this is evil.

Please, in the name of all that is Holy, flood every newspaper in MN with calls for them to make this a front page issue. Get on the phones, get on your fax machines, start sending e-mails to every Republican member of Congress, to every Republican you know in Minnesota including Tim Pawlenty, to the RNC, to Mitch McConnell, John McCain, even Newt Gingrich.

They cannot, I repeat, they cannot stand by and let this happen!