Posted on 11/07/2008 2:47:02 PM PST by Caleb1411
When the polls closed Tuesday evening, Minnesota's Secretary of State's office showed that Norm Coleman had a 725-vote win in his closely contested race against Al Franken. By the next morning, however, Coleman's victory was already shrinking. As various precincts and county auditors have "corrected" their totals, Coleman's lead has dropped to a mere 237 votes. Minnesota Republicans are concerned that the fix may be in.
An example of the kind of thing now going on was reported in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Just as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was explaining to reporters the recount process in one of the narrowest elections in Minnesota history, an aide rushed in with news: Pine County's Partridge Township had revised its vote total upward -- another 100 votes for Democratic candidate Al Franken, putting him within .011 percentage points of Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.
The reason for the change? Exhausted county officials had accidentally entered 24 for Franken instead of 124 when the county's final votes were tallied at 5:25 Wednesday morning.
Currently, the Minnesota Secretary of State's office shows the Franken's total in Partridge Township as 129, not 124. Still, the Partridge story is the most coherent explanation we've gotten so far as to why vote totals have repeatedly been adjusted to Franken's advantage.
Optical scan ballots are used nearly everywhere in Minnesota. The system is simple: once the polls close, absentee ballots are run through the machines with Republican and Democratic poll watchers both present. The machines are then locked down. The machine prints a tape that looks like a grocery store printout that summarizes the number of votes cast for each candidate in each race. At the same time, the totals are uploaded electronically, via a secure phone line connected to the box, to the county where the precinct is located; from there, they are reported to the Secretary of State. The tape showing the precinct's vote totals is signed by the precinct's election judge and is required to be publicly displayed.
There is essentially no human input here. There is no room for new ballots to be "discovered," or for counting "errors" to be corrected. The process is electronic. My understanding had been that optical scan voting is in use in every one of Minnesota's several thousand precincts. Based on the Strib's account of what happened in Partridge Township, it appears this may not be the case.
Some very basic questions need to be answered. What are the precincts that have allegedly "corrected" the vote totals they originally reported? On what basis were the alleged corrections made? Did both Republicans and Democrats participate in the alleged corrections? Have the original paper ballots been securely maintained since the polls closed? What assurances are in place to prevent Democrats from fraudulently adding new paper ballots? Do the precincts that have revised their vote totals use the optical scan system that is, as I understand it, nearly universal? If not, why not? If so, what do the ballot machines' tapes show? If the totals now being claimed are inconsistent with the tapes that were signed by the precinct's election judges, on what basis can they be accepted? Why is it that each "correction" seems to favor Franken?
The Coleman campaign has reportedly dispatched volunteers to try to guard the security of ballots in some locations. The danger, of course, is that they could already be too late. Minnesota's Secretary of State, a left-wing activist who was elected in 2006 after MoveOn.org and other nationwide groups targeted the Minnesota Secretary of State race, has yet to certify vote totals. If fraud is to be committed, it most likely has taken place already, or will occur before the recount begins.
UPDATE: Hot off the press, the first apparent evidence of fraud. Last night at around 7:30, a precinct in Mountain Iron, St. Louis County, mysteriously updated its vote total to add 100 new votes--all 100 for Barack Obama and Al Franken.
Mountain Iron uses optical scanning, so the Coleman campaign asked for a copy of the tape documenting the ballots cast on election night. St. Louis County responded by providing a tape that includes the newly-added 100 votes, and is dated November 2--the Sunday before the election. St. Louis County reportedly denies being able to produce the genuine tape from election night, even though Minnesota law, as I understand it, requires that tape to be signed by the election judges and publicly displayed.
Maybe there is some legitimate explanation for these events, but I haven't thought of one yet. More to come.
Ping
If Franken steals it, it will almost be worth it to see the IDIOT he makes of himself
His a TOTAL ass clown
Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 primary victory, revisited.
Minnesota is a cold commie enclave. The fix is in. The failed comedian will be the junior senator. The biggest joke is on all the doofasses that voted for him and on all those who didn’t bother to go out and vote against him.
Well in Florida in 2000, a large number of outraged Republicans stormed the offices of the vote counters. I don’t remember if it was Dade County or West Palm or somewhere else. But it was beautiful to watch.
They stopped the fraudulent activities that were going on there.
An angry mob of enraged Republicans is beautiful to watch.
Needless to say, it's only going to get worse and more blatant, now that they're going to have an advocate in the White House :-(
What are we going to do about the massive cheating in this country?
Here’s one thing I’ve wondered about: surely it should be possible to review the pattern of changes or “corrections” after the original vote totals were submitted and study them in comparison with the party affiliation of the officials involved etc.
It should not be the case that all of the “corrections” are favoring one candidate, right? If numerous precincts have “corrections” that all favor the Demagogue candidate then that should be a prima facie indication that something suspicious is going on....
I know a lot of conservatives who voted for Barkley, the Independent candidate, in protest of Norm’s status as a moderate.
Not the right time, especially against such a Left-Wing loon like Al Franken
Such foresight. Apparently about to pay huge dividends.
As with the Governors race in the state of Washington a few years back, recounts will continue until Franken has enough to win.
Doubt he'll show up for work once he realizes how small he'll be as part of 100 -- and a new part.
He just wants to go on all the same shows with "Sen." in front of his name.
Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who talked about the blood of patriots being the natural manure (term for compost/fertilizer in those days) of the Tree of Liberty?
Maybe he mentioned the blood of the tyrants as well.
I don’t see any other solution.
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To have this nitwit making decisions about our troops, economy and the hundreds of things the Senate votes on is just plain scary. In a way, the fact that he almost won, just about says it all for this election.
This has already happened before. Thune Vs. Johnson in 2002. We went to bed and our guy is up significantly, then a boatload of votes show up from Indian country and Johnson wins. Funny how it’s always lib votes that show up the next day somehow.
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