Why is it that WCCO removes all the comments they are not liberal left leaning?

Why wasn’t the issue of counting voter receipts raised in the 08 Senate recount? Obviously because it wasn’t a place where Coleman could hope to find the 100 or so votes he needed. Now Emmer thinks he’s going to find nearly 9,000 there? It is obvious that the sole reason for raising this issue is to slow down the recount and keep Pawlenty in office beyond Jan. 4.

Judith, the reason this wasn’t raised in the 08 recount is because we didn’t know how widespread the problem was. The state has since (just recently) conceded that there were 17,000 more votes in MN than there were signatures in the 08 recount. Most of these were in high DFL leaning precincts. The law (which is what the GOP is saying must be followed) states this must be reconciled. To do that, the law says you go to the precincts and randomly take 17,000 ballots out of the count. Doing this in high DFL precincts, it’s clear Coleman would have prevailed, not a good solution for Mark Ricthie, so why bring it up. Again, the GOP wasn’t aware how bad the situation was, so they missed out. I don’t care if you are DFL or GOP, this should make you upset.

Apparently in Minnesota ,according to the GOP we are just to stupid to know how to vote.I mean if we did not vote for republicans then our vote does not count.This something we are suppose to get used to?

O.K. John. Prove your figures and claims about 17,000 missing signatures. Prove this figure and the fact that “most of these were from DFL leaning precincts. It is easy to spread rumor, but most of these rumors are exactly that: Rumor!

This is just a waste of time & money as they are not going to find 8,000 votes for Emmer. They just want to push back the change to after Jan 4th!!!

Yikes, I was wrong. It was 40,000 unaccounted votes:
http://www.minnesotamajority.org/TheIssues/ElectionIntegrity/tabid/188/Default.aspx

Oh John, if only Minnesota Majority wasn’t a republican “think tank.” Also, they provide zero evidence of thos 40,000 claim, no news investigations, no data, no proof. If this were true, I assure you it would be somewhere other than that website

Re: The Coleman/Franken recount, every complaint lodged by the GOP was shot down by every bipartisan canvassing board / judicial panel by a UNANIMOUS decision.

The Coleman/Franken recount was NOT done by SEIU. The recount, by state law, is conducted by the county election officials in each of the counties. Observers from each of the candidates were present (I was an observer for Franken) at each table where the ballots were counted. The entire re-count area is open to the public for observation. The recount is done in a highly transparent manner. ONLY county officials are allowed to touch the ballots. The insinuation that the recount is rigged or fixed is absurd.

Relative to the reconciliation process . . .I’ve been an election judge in Washington county–and I can tell you what was done in the various precincts that I worked in. I’d find it very difficult to believe that thousands of ballots could be cast without reconciliation–I’d love to see a non-partisan reference to validate that claim.

What is supposed to happen: A voter comes to vote. He/she signs the roster or if not already registered to vote, fills out the appropriate registration material and signs on a newly registered form. The voter is then given a numbered ballot “receipt” which he/she takes to the table where ballots are given out. The receipt is given to the election official, and the voter is given a ballot. After voting, the ballot is fed into the vote tabulation machine. The voting machine keeps a running total of the number of ballots it has read.

Periodically thru-out the day, the head election judge verifies that the receipt number matches the number of ballots read. If there is a difference, it nearly always is a mis-read ballot in the “reject” bin of the machine.

After the polls close, a manual count of the number of signatures on the roster is done. This number, plus the number of newly registered voters should equal the count of ballots from the machine, as well as the final number of ballot receipts issued. In several years of working elections, this has always matched –except once where there was one more ballot given out than counted. We assumed that some voter decided not to have his/her ballot read, and took it out of the polling place.

I can’t say what’s done everywhere else, but the process has to be pretty similar. We have about 4000 precincts in the state–it would be awfully difficult to have a miscount of 10 at each precinct–and always in the direction of more ballots than voters.

@Smart voter
@This is NOT Florida
@WashingtonCountyVoter

Comments that actually make sense! I especially appreciated your comment, WashingtonCountyVoter.

I look forward to Dayton’s veto’s!

They did match the voters in each preceint they did it with the receipts that every voter gets after they sign in. The Supreme Court said that was sufficient

I also served as an election judge and WashingtonCountyVoter accurately describes the process. My Ramsey County precinct was reconciled and tallied perfectly.

These GOP pundits who pull these absurd accusations out of the air are simply insulting. GOP Chair Tony Sutton reflectively called the election judges on November 2 “incompetent”. Thank you, sir, but I didn’t see you working a 17 hour day in a frigid elementary gym and take an oath to administer a fair and impartial election. I was proud to be a part of this election. We are far from “incompetent.”

Everyone get their tin foil hats out. It’s a conspiracy.

Minnesota Majority is a right wing financed organization, hardly unbiased. And no where did it say where they got the numbers they are throwing around. I agree with Volunteer Election Worker as I have know a couple of election night workers and they are both honest people and regardless of their affiliation would never ignore their oath. Give it up Emmer, the fat lady has sung. How much is this recount going to cost Mn taxpayers? If it were Dayton on the other side and he caused all this the GOP would be going nuts saying he is wasting taxpayer dollars.