I’ve been going around the internet posting comments on blogs spreading the “stolen election” meme. It’s not futile: one guy basically accepted by argument, and another took his post down. I am unable to post at the following sites, for……

Minnesota has to be one of the, if not the, dumbest States in America… Stupid voters, stupid Officials… It’s just sad that idiots get the same exact vote as educated people in States that are NOT messed up like Minnesota. What a waste of a good land mass, moron Liberals in a worthless State run by idiots and RE-RELECTED over and over to destroy even more… Even the idiots in New Orleans voted out “cold cash” Jeffers… Minnesota is a national JOKE!

While there are some idiots in Minnesota (that’s obvious from some of the ballots posted on MPR), Norm Coleman is a credit to his adopted state, if he can be re-elected. He’s a rather common-sense guy from Brooklyn, who did an excellent job leading the Senate investigation into Saddam’s Oil-for-Food scandal, and over 1.2 million Minnesotans had the good sense to vote for him.

Every village has its idiot, and big cities have thousands of them, but there’s a good chance that the class(less) clown Franken will never be a Senator.

If these ballots are counted as votes for the marked candidate, the resulting votes undid the shift due to the recount within 3 votes in all seven counties. If this pattern holds through the other counties, over 95% of the challenges are frivolous, with only a scant few being true overvotes or impossible to assign to a candidate.

It appears that Team Franken tried the Gregoire strategy of challenging large numbers of ballots to give the perception that the recount was favoring Franken, by deducting votes from Coleman’s total. If this perception was allowed to pervade the media for three weeks before the challenged ballots were reviewed, then the Canvassing Board rejected the vast majority of the challenges and declared Coleman the winner, it would “appear” that Coleman “stole” the election by manipulating the Canvassing Board.

So Team Coleman replied tit-for-tat by challenging slightly more ballots than Franken did (probably on the same criteria that Franken did), which allowed his apparent lead to INCREASE slightly, which did not allow the media to spin a story about the recount favoring Franken. With a lot of the challenged ballots posted online, it’s becoming obvious to most fair-minded people that most of the challenges on BOTH sides are frivolous, so both campaigns are withdrawing frivolous challenges at an equal rate to not “appear” to be making frivolous challenges to “steal” the election, and Coleman is still leading.

On the “missing ballot” front, we had one batch of uncounted ballots show up that favored Franken by 33 votes, and another precinct discover that they double-counted a batch of ballots, and undoing that error favors Coleman by 46 votes–pretty much a wash.

You’ve got to credit Team Coleman with good PR management. The media spin is now:

Original Count: Coleman has a small lead.

Recount + Unresolved Challenges: Coleman has a small lead.

Prediction for Canvassing Board: Most challenges rejected, Coleman has a small lead.

These results are remarkably consistent, so any attempt to declare Franken the winner through the courts or the Senate will look like Franken stealing the election. Perception is everything, and Team Coleman is WINNING the battle of perception!

malfeasance, crime, failure to fulfill duties

Hollowpoint on December 9, 2008 at 10:05 PM</blockquote

Pretty much sums up the Demoncraps.

idiots and RE-RELECTED

DOH! (ok, so I went to public school in Minnesota, sue me!)

:) rofl

savvydude

Must be a real pip if she beats out Blaggo in Illinois.

So when is that ‘Lake Wobegone’ guy going to run for office? I hear he’s a real firecracker with the crowds.

rihar on December 10, 2008 at 1:08 AM

In real life, when he’s not on the radio, Keillor is even colder and more condescending than Franken is–a pompous jerk.

Team Franken lashed out at the Star Tribune today, criticizing its vote totals and claiming that they have the lead. Franken’s lawyers tried to explain that they have better challenges than Coleman’s team, a point that will get settled by the Canvassing Board. Minnesota Public Radio disagreed with that assessment after sampling one-sixth of the original ballot challenges.

You know, when you lose the Star-Trib and Minnesota Public Radio, it might be time to start considering that even your expected ideological soulmates aren’t going to carry the torch for your ballot challenges forever.

If Coleman wins, I’ll happily admit I was wrong when I declared Franken the winner. As soon as heard there’d be recount, I started to practice saying “Senator Franken”.

juliesa on December 9, 2008 at 9:57 PM

same here, right after the election, I figured Franken would find a way to steal it..NOW, things are looking better for Norm

Are Coleman surporters, Coleman Thruthers.

LOL

kara26 on December 9, 2008 at 10:38 PM

Careful, you are on the verge of being labled “deranged”. But if you are, you will be in good company…

Are Coleman surporters, Coleman Thruthers.

LOL

Saturday Night Live: “Lyndon LaRouche Theatre” – April 19, 1986
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7786609813647356541

There are a host of people here who are prepared to have Franken recalled if he tries to steal the election.
foxforce91 on December 9, 2008 at 9:47 PM

Simply getting enough votes isn’t enough for a recall the way I read MN statute- there has to be specific cause (malfeasance, crime, failure to fulfill duties). Unfortunately, “being a douche” isn’t likely to cut it.