Coleman - Franken Senate Race Recount

It seems enough attention has been directed to the Al Franken, Norm Coleman Minnesota Recount that I could possibly hope to be the one to bring anything new to the table. To that end, I have included "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" on my blogroll, and would point you to this site; "Election Reporting," for recount news every evening. It's updated every evening shortly after 8:00 pm (Central Time).

Norm is the certified winner of the race. Minnesota law requires a recount when the race is as tight as it was. That recount proceeds. Even if the original margin of 7oo + votes were still the certified margin of victory for Coleman, Minnesota law would required a recount. Except for about 540 questionable votes "found" for Franken shortly after the election, all is as it should be. There will continue to be flurries of court action around ineligble/eligible absentee ballots that Franken says should be counted, and Norm says didn't come into the precincts for counting in a legal fashion. So far Minnesota elections officials agree with Coleman that they should not be counted. If the margin of victory is ultimately smaller for Coleman than the number of "uncounted ballots," look for there to be a huge blow up over counting them. Even if they didn't show up on time or have disqualifying irregularites.

This article by MDE shows how Dems are insulting their own to gain acceptance for the idea that improperly marked ballots would swing for Franken. More →

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Coleman Margin Grows for the first time

By two votes. Coleman's advantage is now 206. More →

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FrankenFraud Ballot Shenanigans Continue.

A mysterious 32 ballots show up, Coleman contests them immediately, and loses. This is a primer in stealing elections;

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune - "A Ramsey County judge on Saturday denied a bid by lawyers representing U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign to delay the opening of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis.

The request touched off a fresh war of words in a Senate race where 221 votes separate Republican Coleman and DFLer Al Franken in unofficial tallies.

The 32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late in the polling day, according to Election Director Cindy Reichert.

She said they were retained when they couldn't be delivered because some polling places had shut down for the day. She said the ballots were kept sealed until other election duties were completed and were being counted Saturday afternoon, with results to be delivered to the state on Monday.

However, the Coleman campaign contended that the integrity of the ballots 'is in serious doubt.' Its argument for a temporary restraining order was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds by Kathleen Gearin, chief district court judge in Ramsey County.

The Franken campaign accused Coleman of a 'Saturday morning sneak attack' intended to short-circuit the counting of ballots. But Coleman's campaign said it merely wanted to delay the opening until it could be assured in a future hearing that the ballots were in the continuous possession of election officials."

This is how you know something foul is afoot. Coleman is merely saying "wait a minute." After all, there is a statewide recount coming. There is plenty of time to open the ballots. But remember, the BALLOTS INSIDE the envelopes have no markings on them to trace them back to the 32 envelopes they came from. While they are sealed, their authenticity can be examine. Once UNSEALED and cast in with the rest of the absentee ballots, they can no longer be traced. It can be determined later that the ballots are valid and there's no harm. If it is determined later that the ballots were INVALID, there's nothing that can be done since there is no way to pull those now anonymous ballots out of the population of absentee ballots. Look for the Coleman margin to shrink by at least 32 more votes by Monday. Maybe even tilt in FrankenFraud's favor if this sort of treason is being performed all over Minnesota. 32 here, 32 there, pretty soon it's Al Franken, Senator Elect.

Behavior tells you everything here. Coleman is not trying to get the ballots disqualified, he's trying to SEE if they came from a legitimate source. If they did, with voting split almost evenly between FrankenFraud and Coleman, it stands to reason that the ballots wouldn't help FrankenFraud much. 13 for FrankenFraud, 13 for Coleman, the balance going to the third party candidate doesn't help Al at all. So why does FrankenFraud lobby so ardently for the acceptance of the ballots? Is it because he "wants every vote counted?" No. It's because he knows what is in those 32 envelopes. 32 votes for Al. If they're sequestered. If they're DENIED as real ballots. If they're OPENED and there are 32 votes for one candidate, it's nearly ironclad proof of voter fraud. If they're opened now, as they have been and stirred in the pot with the rest of the ballots, no one will ever know for sure.

Less heinous is the simple possibility that FrankenFraud is trying to get LATE ballots, ones that should not be counted, counted. Why? Again this is not because FrankenFraud wants "every vote counted," it's probably because it's a FrankenFraud leaning district. In this analysis Al doesn't gain a lot of votes, but he gains. If the precinct is voting 70-20-10, Al, Norm, Third Party, then Al probably picks up at least a net of 19 or 20 votes.

I have not checked to see if he latter is true. I don't think Norm is such a boyscout that he would be challenging absentee ballots in a district favorable to him if they were just late ballots. If the ballots are not simply late, I'm almost certain they are outright frauds. It's too late now and I'm afraid we simply saw the tip of the voter fraud iceberg in this little scenario.

What we DO know about the 32 ballots is that they were "found" in someone's car according to the blog Minnesota Democrats Exposed. That someone? Election Director Cindy Reichert. For now I do not know the party affiliate of Cindy Reichert or Judge Kathleen Gearin, but I could probably safely bet a large sum, that they are DFL'ers. That's Minnesotan lingo for "Democrat." More →

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Further FrankenFraud Update

And of course, all recounts lead to more votes for.....FrankenFraud.

It's now 221 in favor of Coleman. Someone found 15 more FrankenFraud Votes since this morning. We're watching now, so it's a bit harder to stuff the ballot box. Small moves are the order of the day. With the official recount coming in a week, there's plenty of time to find the remaining votes.

Of course, the first recount that shows FrankenFraud ahead, will be the "correct" count. More →

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Franken Coleman Update

See if you can read the bias. Oh, I highlighted the most OBVIOUS part. Sorry.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul 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."

Oh, those poor things. Exhausted are they? Is the question being asked why someone is not exhausting themselves looking for Norm Coleman votes?

"(Al) Franken called reporters to talk about the prospects for a continued narrowing of the count.

'Coleman said there was no reason for a recount, that there would be no movement,' Franken said Thursday, a day after unofficial results initially showed Coleman with a 725-vote advantage. 'But you see that it's more than halved and the recount hasn't even started. This election will be decided by the voters, not by the candidates.' "

Again, numbers dispassionately counted don't continue to migrate in one direction. Why is it that errors only cluster around miscounted Franken Votes? Minnesota is hardly a conservative Republican state. It's apparatus is populated by "exhausted" election workers urgently scouring vote totals to find Extra Franken Votes. THIS IS NOT A FAIR RECOUNT, this is a BIASED recount. This is the origin of machine voting and counting.

It has always been known that when the human factor entered the counting process, the process would be polluted as political goals spilled over into the counting, the process itself becoming a way to elect a candidate. Machine voting never was offered as error free, but as MORE accurate and spreading the errors around randomly. The much vilified punch card ballot would never produce the same result twice, but the number would float one way or the other around a center value that would roughly be assumed to be the true number. The reason? Ballots contain imperfections and would count one time, and not the other, or be destroyed dispassionately and randomly during the recount. They remained however, the physical representation of the voting event.

Even Florida's law in 2000 that was questioned was designed to call the vote count representative of the actual count and that the ideal real vote count could never really be attained, only a representation of it. This is true for anyone who thinks about it. The process of "counting every vote" has become a code word for "stuffing" the vote. Florida even set it's recount limits at a place where recounts were triggered by margins far too high to change in a recount, just to make sure there would be no appearance of defrauding the voters. No one watching the election count in 2000 in Florida thought a 5000 some odd vote margin for Bush would dwindle to about 200 some odd votes, unless of course someone was stuffing the ballot box between counts.

Let us also remember, Al Franken is actually correct, it is not the CANDIDATE that is defrauded by a bad count, it is the VOTERS. The voters as a WHOLE always deserve the most accurate and dispassionate fraud free count possible. It is their will we seek to discern, the candidate that loses is not the wronged party. The wronged party is always the voting public, if there is fraud.

More →

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Recount Watch (UPDATED)

When votes are counted, why does it seem to me that Republican Victories turn in to Democrat Victories? Does someone have a bag of Franken ballots to throw in the pool?

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune - "(Norm) Coleman declared victory Wednesday morning, when his unofficial lead over (Al) Franken stood at 725 votes out of nearly 2.9 million cast, according to the secretary of state's tally. By the end of the day, as county officials from around the state forwarded adjusted figures to the state, that margin had shrunk to 477 votes."

In 2000, the vote count kept narrowing in favor of Gore. In Washington State, the 2004 recount tilted the race from Republican to Democrat. I know statisitcs well enough to know that random error doesn't always end up with the same sort of result.

Random error does not favor the Republican, and then in an error free recount (oxymoron) end up favoring the Democrat. Why do I have the nervous feeling that someone will find 500 Al Franken Ballots?

Machines are Republican of course, and when Dino Rossi won twice in machine counts to over Christine Gregoire. A loving unbiased error free "hand count" led to a Democrat victory. Of course Al Franken wants a "hand count." Or should I say a "sleight of hand" count?

Why is it that votes get "lost" by machines only on the Democrat side? Why do they mysteriously get "found" by people "hand counting each ballot?" Why did Rick Jore win a recount, and then get ballots disqualified so that he....lost?

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE

"The latest unofficial results collected by the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office of Tuesday's vote now show Coleman with a 236-vote lead over Franken. That's down from 725 Wednesday morning."

First, 725 for Coleman, then 477, now it's 236. Recounts FLUCTUATE if done randomly. You count a sample and there are errors and the margin of victory is 725. Then it's 477. Ok, that I can buy, though I continue to have difficulty with the idea that recounts for major political office ALWAYS favor democrats. But still, 725 to 477, no problemo. But a 725 margin to a 477 margin then a 236 margin? Folks, THIS IS NOT RANDOM. It's not an error, it's INTELLIGENT. Someone is stuffing the ballot box between recounts. Since Franken GAINS a little under 300 votes each count, doesn't it make sense that the next recount will show 30 or 40 votes in Franken's favor? Why is the swing each time a positive number (for Franken) of a little over 240 votes? THIS IS SIMPLY NOT RANDOM. More →

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