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MN-SEN: Coleman: Count the ballots cast!

Dems: Count the ballots we are still printing!

By: Soren Dayton (Diary)  |  November 9th, 2008 at 11:58 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The Democrats are trying to steal a Senate seat in Minnesota. The Coleman campaign is trying to block the counting of 32 ballots because they were riding around with a Democratic election official for 3 days. Surely you can trust those right? From the AP:

The request from Coleman’s campaign said Minneapolis elections director Cynthia Reichert called its office at 7:45 p.m. Friday and reported that 32 ballots had been found and would be counted the next morning.

“We were actually told they had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions,” said Coleman’s attorney, Fritz
Knaak.

The integrity of our elections depends on the physical integrity of our ballots. But the loony left that doesn’t mind government being a criminal enterprise when its their government is insisting that all the votes be counted. Perhaps the netroots ought to get out their printers and print out a couple thousand more absentee ballots to guarantee they can win.

H/T: Minnesota Democrats Exposed, the only decent source of information on the recount

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COMMENTS

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  • LoneApple

    I can’t see how anyone could reasonably expect those ballots to be anything but suspect. Toss them.

  • DRP

    Are all the absentee ballots counted already? Or at least most of them?

    Those tend to trend Republican, if I recall correctly.

    • eburke

      are found in boxes of Cracker Jacks or the trunks of Democrat election officials.)

  • Roger_Obana

    Nate Silver gives a pretty good statistical anaylsis of why Franken could surpass Coleman in the recount:

    http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/frankens-odds-of-winning-recount-may-be.html

  • mbecker908

    And Coleman, like Republicans everywhere will go off into the sunset whimpering.

  • Neil_Stevens

    We do fight off the forces of darkness sometimes, with 2000 being a fine example.

  • ClassicConservative

    You know Franken is going to pull ahead in that recount. The votes that didnt get counted the first time are people who had no idea how to fill out a ballot (first timers). That would be Obama’s college folk. If Coleman tries to stop a recount he is going to look like he’s trying to interfere with democracy (as it is Franken’s right as a citizen under MN law). This is lose lose for us.

    At least we still have Georgia. And Joe Lieberman.

  • mbecker908

    We fight off the forces of darkness and in less time than it takes to respond to your comment our elected class throws the lesson down a black hole and we turn the reigns of government and the party over to NewTone™.

    We win one fight and spend the next eight years pouring concrete for the foundation of a leftist dynasty.

  • Fotones_de_Akba

    Hello SD,
    Thank you for keeping us up to date on the Minnesota race. A very exciting one!!

    I don’t know anything about Minnesota state politics — especially Ramsey County Judge Kathleen Gearin.
    All I know is what the AP article says.

    Judge Gearin said that her court has no jurisdiction until the vote total is final. It appears to me that if Coleman is behind in the voting, he could later appeal the election based on the 32 ballots in question.

    Am I naive? Is Judge Gearin’s statement just polite judicial whitewash?

    Below are the 2 related paragraphs from AP:

    Gearin denied the campaign’s request to stop the count for an investigation of the ballots’ history because the court does not have jurisdiction until the vote total is final and an official contest of the result has made, Knaak said.

    Coleman has no plans to contest the results because he is ahead, he added.

  • zuiko

    They already “found” 400+ votes for Franken and the recount hasn’t even begun yet. That won’t start for another week or so. And it’s supposed to last until December. Washington State all over again.

  • eburke

    who is also a county GOP chairman plus I’ve been following this closely so this view is a combination of conversations with him and local news reports.

    Duluth, which is heavily unionized and Dem, did not report any returns until 3 am and some of the precincts had 90+% turnout rates with 1/3 of the registrations being same day (yeah, we’re one of those states which allows you to register the day of the election) UM/Duluth is in…well..Duluth and is noted for being very liberal.

    One of the ‘mistakes’ which resulted in a 100 vote gain for Franken came from a machine which had a time stamp of November 2 on it, also up in the Duluth area. The election officials said that the date was already off when they ran the ‘pre-election’ tape. They did not, however, posit a reason why they didn’t reset the time, nor respond to the manufacturers of the machine who said they have never had a report of one of their clocks being off.

    In response to my inquiry of my ‘source’ as to the prevalence of poll watchers in St. Louis County (where Duluth is located) said that they had PWs in most but not all of the precincts. No info whether those are the ones with ‘interesting’ returns.

    All in all, the Coleman folk are contesting all these things in the courts, and will continue to do so (per news reports and my source). However, I could tell from his demeanor this morning that they are hoping for the best but fearing the worst.

    Mark Ritchie, SOS of MN, was endorsed by ACORN, and, according to one report I read, was a community organizer for them. Having said all that, I’d rather be ahead than behind right now.

    If you’re of a mind, the MN GOP could use some money to help fund this litigation. They pretty much went through it all in the Coleman-Bachmann-Pearsen races. And for those of you RSers that live in MN, there is a state program which will refund you up to $50/person, $100/couple if you donate to one of the state parties. Contact your local GOP office is you’re interested.

    So don’t just sit there…do something. I’m not going to say that Norm hasn’t annoyed me with some of his votes, but he’s a devout Catholic who’s passionately pro-life, he stood with us on immigration reform and the Iraq war (which is MN took b*lls) and is infinitely better than the vile, vulgar, worthless waste of human debris which is Al Franken.

  • its_a_right_wing_thing

    “I’m not going to say that Norm hasn’t annoyed me with some of his votes, but he’s a devout Catholic who’s passionately pro-life, he stood with us on immigration reform and the Iraq war “

    Coleman is a NY (by birth) Jew. Sorry you lose. If your friend was really a staffer, perhaps you’d have known this? If he is a Catholic, (I dont know) its through conversion)

  • geraldatwork

    As someone who felt he was on the wrong side of these kind of things the past eight years I can sympathize with the thinking here. The fact I felt my candidates were being cheated and the Republicans who now feel their Mn senatorial election will be stolen is all the more reason for some election reform. As an American there should never be the feeling that one of our favored candidates may lose an election other than what was the determination of the voters. Without faith in the voting system there can be no Democracy. Some kind of voting reform should be made a priority.

  • eburke

    I highly resent you calling me a liar since you don’t have a freaking clue about my friendships; especially since in your next sentence you state “if he is a Catholic its through conversion”. So you’re basically saying you don’t know so why the condescending snark?

    Not sure why I’m bothering with someone so rude, but in the interest of despensing accurate info to the rest of the RS community, reflecting on my conversation(s) w/my staffer buddy where life issues in relation to religious beliefs have come up have focused on his wife so perhaps I imputed her Catholicism on Norm. Or perhaps he converted. But tell ya what, I’ll ask him tomorrow and send you a signed affadavit.

    And what’s with the ‘sorry you lose’ snark? Didn’t realize that we were keeping score. Man, lighten up. Someone tries to pass along some first hand knowledge and you decide to get all snarky and sanctimonious.

    Grow up pal! Nobody died and made you God the last I checked.

  • Doc_Holliday

    you would be gone. no sarcasm, no snark, no joking, we don’t need this here.

  • eburke

    n/t

  • itrytobenice

    Smarmy Know-it-alls, who don’t know Jack $#it, don’t make it long around here. You won’t either and none of us will be sad to see you go.