1/3 - 9:59 PM MN Recount. Franken - Set to Win. MN SoS - election contest futile

[autorank]

From Election Defense Alliance

The Updake, St. Paul MN

This is as of 9:59 PM, Central Time



Franken had his best day at the recount. He's leading now by 225 votes. The canvassing board will consider and certify the count on Monday or Tuesday.

The Coleman campaign has some votes that they're challenging and some that they want in. But it looks like this is the final since all the issues have been ruled upon by the current election panel.

The Coleman campaign threatened an election contest at the post recount press conference (recording below). But Minnesota's Secretary of State Ritchie predicts no election contest would occur due to the high degree of accuracy of the recount. He said that the loser will have to admit that they actually lost.

Keep in mind that Coleman will need to pay for the efforts from now on. The automatic recount was financed by the state. Coleman may not have the money;)

Here's a video of today's post-recount news conference.


Link: http://theuptake.org

Links:

Request for an emergency order from the Minnesota Supreme Court
Tracking spreadsheet
Update - changes in count

[Me.]

1. Hardee Har

He will have to pay :rofl:

You know what that means...more under the table deals...more FBI investigations...and then we get into an infinity thing

[autorank]

4. Hey, you're smart -- SMRT -- smart

Maybe Coleman seeks an election contest to delay any FBI charges (rumored). He also seeks one to help Sen. Cornyn (Right Wing-TX) create his "chaos" as threatened in the Senate for seating Franken before the election contest is over (b.s. move, more on that later). But he slow rolls it. Works for the Senate Republicans since, if their bluff isn't called, it delay's Franken's seating and works for Coleman since he can put off the FBI for 4-5 months, if that's in the works, but do it cheaply.

What a guy, Coleman. Wonder if he swiped the special election against Mondale?

[Gregorian]

8. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

This is like a little icing on the cake. Bite me, Karl Rove.

[Me.]

9. This Is What Happens When You Wait For Every Vote to Be Counted

VICTORY!

Let that be a lesson. As to Cornyn. He's due for a fall. Karma is a big butt kicker and his character has been in the red for a long time. Right now he thinks he's BMOC but just wait. There won't be enough perfume in the world to take the stink off him.

[aquart]

14. You promise?

Because I've been sad today and that would make me happy.

[Me.]

15. Every Dog Has Their Day

And every snake gets stomped on sooner or later

[grantcart]

10. I don't think it will have any impact - Coleman's term ended today he is now a regular citizen

[bleever]

16. Oh ye of little faith.

;)

How could Coleman (picked by Cheney over Pawlenty) possibly have been part of stealing Wellstone's seat from Mondale, even if Mondale was polling ahead of Coleman consistently through election day?

You're implying that both Cheney AND Coleman aren't defenders of the Constitution.


How DARE you, sir??



:hi:

[autorank]

30. OK so here's the movie.

Coleman gets Scaife money to do the appeals. The Senate is wrapped around the axel on seating Franken even though a 6th grader could figure it out (or someone with a sixth grade mind, see below).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4767312

There's a delay but Franken is seated. The case is before a neocon judge, Federalist Society pedigree. It looks bad.

In discovery, the State of Minnesota (opposing Coleman) gets a boat load of paper with a smiling paralegal delivering it. They go through it and find -- evidence that the special election that put Coleman in office at the onset was rigged AND that Coleman had first hand knowledge.

Heads explode!

:hi:

[bleever]

33. Awesome.

I'd greenlight that script.

:hi:

[Stevepol]

18. Mondale was up in pre-election polling, and the optiscans

I don't believe were audited. The results was just outside the margin that would have brought about an automatic recount.

I think it was stolen but it's only an opinion. Unless the paper is recounted as in this election there's no way for anybody to know. We don't have a democracy in the US at present since in most states the vote is counted in secret by private companies w/o verification. MN proved itself capable of recounting fairly because they have a system that demanded it. I don't know what kind of audit system is in place in MN. In other wds, I don't know what would have happened in MN if the margin had been greater than 1%. Would there have been an audit? What % would have been recounted in the audit? What would have happened if the audit determined that the result was not correct? I don't know the answer to any of those questions.

[cynthia]

26. every election in MN has an audit

I think it goes something like this: a small number of precincts are selected at random for the audit and the votes are re-counted (by optical scanning machines). If there is a difference between election night counts and audit counts, then a larger number of precincts are swept into the audit. My impression is that up until this point, the audits always came out clean, so that the increased number of precinct audited was not necessary.

[autorank]

32. Audites lack the precision to pick this up consistently

MN has very well thought out election law and professional staff at the state and local level.

But this was hand counted. It caught a big error and I suspect that would show up consistently.

I'm happy for Minnesota and Franken, who was very dignified throughout. Classy guy.

[autorank]

31. Excellent points! But come on, ...

you think it was stolen;)

Right, how about that. I think this was a pretty clean election. Calling for a recount says you've got nothing to hide and Coleman didn't resist too much. In fact, had it been stolen, Coleman would have won by outside the margin.

This is our equivalent of the anti death penalty people finding out 100% that an innocent man was executed (which they have, I suspect, but nobody listens).

[formercia]

22. Normie isn't clever enough to swipe anything except money.

He has his sugar-daddy Karl to do it for him.

Karl, the 'genius' who 'groomed' Junior to be President. :rofl: He chose poorly.

[dweller]

2. to the moon, Alice!

#5

kayanar.
dp

[autorank]

5. dweller

How appropriate, #5. You've emerged!

The Secretary of State's comments about a recount being futile is quite a statement. This has
been a very transparent recount. In fact, in honor of your presence, here is the recount language
from MN (pretty decent):

Minnesota Recount Laws

"Types of Recounts Permitted in Minnesota: An automatic recount of the results of an election for federal office, state constitutional or legislative office, or judicial office will occur if the difference in the number of votes cast for the apparent winning candidate and any other candidate is less than one half of 1 percent (0.5 percent).

"Results of a Recount: The vote totals for each candidate following a recount may be different—in some cases, substantially—from the unofficial results reported on election night. This is often because the recount will turn up ballots that reveal a voter’s intent, but were unable to be read by an optical-scan voting machine. For example, optical-scan voting machines do not register a vote if the voter circles a candidate’s name instead of filling in the oval next to the name; provided the intent is clear upon manual inspection of the ballot, however, the vote is counted as a part of the recount.

"The final results as modified, if necessary, by the recount are considered the final results of the election and are certified as final by the canvassing board." (Author's emphasis) Election Recounts: Federal, State, and Judicial Offices

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/issinfo/ssrecount.htm

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN)

[Snarkoleptic]

3. Expect a lot of squealing from the pig-men.

We all know how much the pugs hate when the votes are all counted.

[autorank]

6. "F#$k 'em if they can't take a joke!"

That's a great motto;)

And Al's capable of giving them first class entertainment and comedy to get their heads out of
you know where.

Seriously, Franken stood tall. He did what he did to get the real outcome for the people of
MN, ya know, one of those democracy things.

And he showed a lot more dignity than Coleman, the male hysteric.

[ihavenobias]

7. Lucky # 8?

Nah, I guess that doesn't work. 8 is great?

;)

[Old and In the Way]

11. Looks like that Republican winning streak ended at 1.

Damn shame my state didn't elect Tom Allen along with Obama. We'd have had the 60 votes outright. I still can't figure that one out.

[autorank]

19. Your state is a big help

Those twin Republicans up there are going to be under a lot of pressure soon for staying in
a right wing regional party that does nothing for New England and Maine.

Their streak is in big trouble. Franken was very dignified in during the recount while Coleman
was acting like a male hysteric.

This will tune in Franken on elections issues in a big way, which "is a good thing."

:hi:

[Old and In the Way]

23. I fully expect Snowe and maybe Collins to break ranks with the Republican Obstructionists

In some ways, Maine could benefit being the 60th vote on major legislation. I hope Snowe remembers how well she's been treated in the Republican caucus. She's pretty much bullet-proof from the right in the primaries....the more she supports the Democratic agenda, the better her chances for another term. Collins will follow Snowe's lead...hopefully.

[Ian David]

12. About fucking time! n/t

[Ian David]

13. Looking forward to SENATOR Al Franken's interview by Captain Phonesex on The Factor. n/t

[sce56]

27. It will never happen this is how BillO's going to react on Monday!

[book_worm]

17. So will Norm take this all the way to the US Supreme Court who may pull a Bush v Gore?

[autorank]

20. They've got nothing to stand on with this one.

Wouldn't raise your hopes if I wasn't sure;)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seating-Franken-and-Burris-by-Michael-Collins-090104-439.html

[jmowreader]

21. What's the likelihood of someone like Scaife funding Coleman's efforts?

Keeping in mind that Scaife pounded many dollars down the Whitewater rathole, could Coleman get funding from some RW think tank to keep up this futile election recount until the state of Minnesota "gives in and declares Coleman the winner."

Logic says no, but these guys aren't running on logic now. If Coleman was being logical, he would have conceded when he realized that the more absentee ballots are counted the further behind he gets. Hopefully the Minnesota Supreme Court will give him a list of conservative think tanks who might hire him, and tell him to start updating his résumé.

[Yukari Yakumo]

24. Depends on how badly they got burned by the market meltdown

Even they may not have the money to press on.

[jmowreader]

25. I don't think they will

I've been known to be wrong about Republicans before, but I don't think they'll try to overturn this election. Even a blind man should be able to see Coleman lost this one.

I think they'll attempt to paint Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken as the two most liberal senators who ever lived (neglecting, of course, that the senator before Norm Coleman was Paul Wellstone, who probably WAS the most liberal senator who ever lived--and they LOVED him!) and describe everything they do in the worst possible terms...saying they were the "deciding votes" on any tax increases, for instance...in an attempt to get another repuke in one of their seats.

[bluesmail]

28. And he did by playing by the rules. Al. Congratulations. n/t

[calimary]

29. Bring on the oft-delayed Al Franken Decade!

:toast: :headbang: :party: