Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

Not Every Vote Counts

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Election Reform Donate to DU
 
groovedaddy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-04-08 12:30 PM
Original message
Not Every Vote Counts
THE lizard people have eaten a vote in Beltrami County. That’s not so strange in a recount like the one underway in Minnesota — voters do all kinds of inexplicable things like inscribing “lizard people” in the write-in slot, as one did, invalidating his ballot.

Much more alarming is that hundreds of votes have disappeared in the still too-close-to-call Senate race between Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent, and Al Franken, the Democratic candidate. The missing ballots expose a fundamental flaw in our way of doing elections — one that proves the recount in Minnesota is futile.

Before the recount began on Nov. 19, Mr. Coleman and Mr. Franken were within about 200 votes of each other. With a little under three million ballots cast in the election, that margin was unbelievably small: a few thousandths of a percent separated the two candidates. So, as Minnesota law requires, election officials began counting, by hand, every single ballot from the more than 4,000 precincts around the state.

Some missing ballots were misplaced: officials in Ramsey County — to their great embarrassment — discovered 171 uncounted ballots in a compartment of a voting machine. Some errors were typos: a clerical mistake wiped out 25 votes in Blue Earth County.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/opinion/04seife.html?th&emc=th
Refresh | +2 Recommendations Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top

Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Election Reform Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC