Minnesota Election Board--live feed today--addressing absentee ballots

[wellstone dem]

The Minnesota Election Canvassing Board is meeting today, and one topic is what to do with numerous disqualified absentee ballot.

Live feed: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2008/11/recoutn_video.shtml?refid=0


Now if you watch, please post, cause I'll be at work and not able to watch, but able to check occasional posts. Thanks.

[MiniMe]

1. Marking to come back to later. Do you know what time they start?

[MiniMe]

11. This is like watching paint dry right now

Hopefully things will pick up.

[EconomicLiberal]

2. 9 AM central time or 9 AM EST?

[ThomWV]

3. Must be local time, it hasn't started yet and its 9:03 eastern

[ThomWV]

4. Several people have filed into the room, but no official activity yet.

[ThomWV]

5. The Board has just begun its work

[ThomWV]

6. Reading current recount report for other elections in the state

[ThomWV]

7. Discussing possibility of finding way to reduce the number of challenged ballots

The board will count whatever they are presented with but they would like the campaigns to work to reduce the number of challenged ballots to those that really need the board to take a look.

[IDemo]

10. One obvious place to start is with the ridiculous "voter intent" challenges by Coleman

A voter who selects candidates from opposite parties may actually be exercising their mind instead of displaying confusion, as the Coleman camp seems to want to argue.

And, even if they were confused, doesn't it make as much sense to argue that they actually meant to vote for a different presidential candidate?

[last_texas_dem]

12. Yeah, those challenges are definitely silly

Judging from the images of the challenged ballots that appeared on-line, there didn't seem to be anything "suspect" about those ballots beyond the fact that the voters had chosen McCain for President and Franken for Senate. I'd assume the voters who did this were in the tens of thousands, though; so I'm curious how the Coleman campaign is picking and choosing which ones they challenged. Perhaps only voters who chose a straight Republican ticket down the line with the exception of Franken?

After canvassing in Wisconsin in '04, I'm willing to believe just about anything can happen when it comes to ticket-splitting. The fact that I ran into voters who were planning to vote for * for President and Feingold for Senate proved this to me. In fact, I think Feingold did about ten percentage points better in the state than Kerry. Such findings cement the fact that a substantial proportion of voters don't take into consideration a candidate's political philosophy and ideological beliefs much at all in their voting; otherwise, how do you explain voting for such stark opposites to represent you in the presidency and Senate? (Obviously, it's due to factors like feeling an attachment to Feingold based on his incumbency status, voting for your perception of what someone is like as a person rather than what they'll do in office, a desire for gridlock, etc., but I was mostly just asking the question rhetorically.)

[IDemo]

14. My state would make an excellent example

Idaho gave Gramps one of his largest vote percentages, yet overwhelmingly voted out a hard right wingnut and chose the Democratic candidate in a congressional race.

[ThomWV]

8. Discussion now moves to disputed absentee ballots

[ThomWV]

9. First motion is to simply reject all of the disputed absentee ballots

Seconded and now under discussion

[wellstone dem]

13. any decision on this?

[wellstone dem]

15. Canvassing Board rejects Franken move on rejected absentee ballots

The State Canvassing Board, a panel of five arbiters charged with determining the winner in the overtime election tussle between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic rival Al Franken, unanimously voted this morning to deny the Franken campaign's request that rejected absentee ballots be included in the recount.

During the discussion, the board members stressed that they weren't rejecting the merits of the arguments made by Franken's attorneys. They also made it clear they expect the issue to be litigated separately from the recount procedure.

Also this morning, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who chairs the Canvassing Board, said that attorneys from each campaign have said they can find a way to trim the pile of ballots being challenged in counties across the state. Combined, the two sides are so far contesting more than 3,600 ballots.

"This would be a very great benefit to the Canvassing Board and the citizens of the state," Ritchie said early on at the board's meeting this morning.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/35126884.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs

[MiniMe]

16. Are you getting the webcast anywhere?

I couldn't find it on the link, but I've been known to be an airhead on occasion.