Franken is Challenging This Vote

I would have to look at the rest of the ballot. I think it should probably be thrown out - the person is too stupid to vote.

He's the voice of the long gone Air America and a blowhard who's on the wrong side of every issue. To be honest, I don't know how leftists get on the side that they do, with the possible exception that you really are as stupid as you look.

Seems clear to me the person filled in the circle for Coleman.

How can anyone think otherwise? There are no other markings for anyother candidate, so it seems quite obvious to me.

have a nice life...

To me, this is all so obvious. Which means the idiots who are in charge will never see it this way. But I digress.

The ballot that started this thread has obviously been marked for the one guy. I can however understand why it would be challenged since you could make an argument that the voter started to mark the ballot and then put an X through it as though he/she had marked it in error. But I think it should count since nothing else was marked.

As to Cy's ballots, in both cases it is obvious who the voter intended to vote for. But again, I can see why the first one would be challenged. It is not properly marked. If that same voter marked the rest of his ballot in the same way, then no problem, you count the ballot. If the rest of the ballot was properly filled out, then you gotta figure he knew how to mark the ballot and just decided not to vote as he was thinking when he marked it as he did.

Of course, logic has never been a strong point where election officials and candidates are concerned.

What standard does Minnesota law set for recounts in an election? If the standard is "a cross, or a clear mark, within the circle besides the candidate's name", then all three votes are invalid. If the standard says, "if the intent of the voter is clear, count it", then the first two votes are invalid, whereas the third should count.

The first vote is invalid because the voter appears to have made a cross inside the circle and then "erased" it by scrawling over it. The intention of the voter is unclear. In the third vote, the voter seems to have intended to vote for Franken -- but the dot , but the dot in the "Dean Barkley" ellipse obscures the intent enough to make it questionable. The second voter clearly intended to vote for Franken.

I say I can't tell without seeing the rest of the ballot. There were four other places that could have been marked (three other candidates, and a space for a write-in candidate), and this picture doesn't display them.

I could go with those arguments, too.

FWIW, I think it should count. Same with the Franken votes Coleman is challenging that Cyclo showed. If people expressed a clearly recognizable intent, it should count.

You vote- you vote.

If for some strange and extremely rare reason we can't figure out who you voted for - tough ****!

Focus next time!

The answer is not to send someone to your door - AFTER THE ELECTION - and ask you how you intended to vote.

Let's not forget that the Franken campaign asserted that a stroke victim was deprived of her right to vote because her present signature didn't match her recorded one and that this assertion was proven to be BOGUS.

Is it really surprising that a bitter, infantile a-hole like Franken can't concede defeat like an adult?

I can live with Obama, but if Franken manages to steal this election, I'm off to Costa Rica.

Can you rational Dems really argue that Al Franken belongs in the US Senate?

You see a box? Looks like an oval to me...


Franken has never been funnier than he is right now.

One good reason to hope Franken pulls this out.

Both campaigns are playing petty politics with challenging votes.

The Coleman campaign had a press conference to show pictures of votes that were challenged by the Franken campaign. In questioning, the Coleman spokesman admitted that the Coleman campaign has challenged more votes than the Franken campaign. The Coleman campaign is challenging the same kind of votes the Franken campaign is. It's funny that they would post pictures when the pictures of what they are challenging are similar. The audio of the challenges is such that challenges are made just because the other side challenged something similar.

The best ballot so far was one where the voter filled in the bubble for write in votes and then wrote a long diatribe with a couple of words on each line.

Picture in Startribune today but no picture on their website.
Each slash mark designates where it went to a new race. (There were about 20 judicial races on the ballot.)

http://www.startribune.com/politics/34914319.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX

Based on the adjusted count, (Using old counts where recounting hasn't occurred) Coleman leads by about 135 votes.

One local supervisor was refusing to accept challenges from both sides he thought were frivolous. Good for him. But he was ordered yesterday to accept all challenges and let them be sorted out by the state board.

Bottom line so far, Franken is gaining slowly. Challenges have been pretty equal but Coleman has more.

You might find this link interesting Nimh. It's updated recounts with changes in totals
http://ww2.startribune.com/news/metro/elections/returns/2008/recount/msenco.html

Get this. Coleman is challenging a ton of ballots, which clearly and indisputably voted for McCain AND Franken, by claiming that McCain voters must have meant to vote for Coleman.



Cycloptichorn

Cyclotroll, do you have proof of the claim or is this just more of your imagination running wild?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/21/174840/55/274/664838

Video of the challenged votes from Franklin county.

And you're still a pathetic waste of space, troll. I only keep you off ignore because occasionally you **** out something funny in your ignorance which makes for a good laugh amongst me and my office mates.

Cycloptichorn

Your office mates laugh at you behind your back.
They wish you would leave them alone and stop hitting on them.

Cyclotroll - Queen of the trolls!

Ton is not a term I would use since neither campaign has challenged 1000 votes yet.

Because the challenges are by watchers at the individual sites, some watchers have different standards than others. Some are being unreasonable in their challenges.

Only 27 ballots were challenged by Coleman in Fillmore county. It only changed the Franken count by 15 votes in that county. I wouldn't worry too much about the silly challenges. The 5 member panel will look through them and sort some of them pretty quickly.