Friday - December 19, 2008

This Comes As No Surprise

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Democrat Al Franken edged ahead of Republican incumbent Norm Coleman on Friday for the first time in Minnesota’s long-running U.S. Senate recount.

Franken opened up a slight lead on the fourth day of a state Canvassing Board meeting to decide the fate of hundreds of disputed ballots.

The change was notable because Coleman led Franken in election night returns and also held a 188-vote lead before the board took up challenged ballots. But its significance was limited, with the possibility the lead could change again before the long recount ends.

The board had several hundred remaining challenges to resolve, with a goal of doing so by Friday. Both Coleman and Franken are also waiting to see how much they gain from some 5,000 challenges that they withdrew, and the board won’t allocate those until Monday.

The outcome of the recount also depends on an estimated 1,600 absentee ballots that were improperly rejected. The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that those ballots must be counted, and set a Dec. 31 deadline for counties to work with the candidates to identify and count them.

It took six weeks of non-stop cheating to get to this inevitable point. For a roundup of the whole mess, see Ann Coulter’s latest column, “One Plus One Equals 20 Extra Votes For Franken”.

It is absolutely unacceptable that such crap still goes on. This is the 21st century. Any town, county, or state that can’t get it’s votes tallied and finalized in 72 hours should have their election nullified. Any polling station worker that allows a single unregistered voter to vote should be subject to heavy fines. Any ballots that get “lost”, “delayed”, or amazingly “found later in the back of my car” are burned on the spot. No mercy, no chads, no “trying to determine voter intent”. Do it right, exactly right, or the whole thing gets tossed. Tough shit.

Any school kid knows that the “#2 pencil rules” for standard exams are absolute. The rules for voters, adults, should be just as stringent. It says fill in the circle. That means a line, an X, a check mark ... are not allowed. Changing your mind is allowed, but you have to turn in your ballot, which gets shredded right in front of you, then you get a new one. Extraneous marks of any kind invalidate the whole ballot card. Period. Maybe a voter education campaign that uses coloring books could help, as it’s the same basic idea: pick one area, and stay between the lines. Maybe you set up a worker - a retired grade school teacher thirsting for vengence - in a special booth with a tall screen in it so she can’t see your face but you can see her hands, and she checks your ballot over before it’s allowed to be submitted. And if you screw it up it gets a Big Red X across it and you have to go to the Principal’s office. Something like that. The situation in Minnesota is total bullshit. 

Posted by Drew458     on 12/19/2008 at 01:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Outrageous • Politics •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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