Lasix side effects. Inability to urinate after lasix….

Another great state down the crapper of liberalism?

Al Frankin should have been run out on a rail. He’s a disgrace, and should have been beat by Triumph the Insult Dog.

We have taken a considerable amount of pride in Minnesota’s electoral processes

You shouldn’t be. It is nothing but a big ‘cluster****’.

Every post you make about this ‘crapfest’ becomes more and more confusing.

Is this anything? This is on HuffPo today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/10/fbi-investigating-coleman_n_149840.html

FBI investigating Coleman.

juliesa on December 10, 2008 at 1:57 PM

Thanks. I like reading the comments.
Now I truthfully am not aware of any wrongdoing Coleman has done in the past.
If it’s true, I’m not surprised as to why MN is so screwed up.
But if people actually thought Franken was a better choice, my God what in the hell’s wrong with them out there?!
Reading the comments on the article, I realize liberalism has sickeningly invaded all aspects of MN society.

The Twin Cities are freaking scary.

Ugh. I am not going there again if I can help it.
And BTW-The Mall of America really sucks. More of the same junk you can find anywhere-with Camp Snoopy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/10/fbi-investigating-coleman_n_149840.html

FBI investigating Coleman.

Kudos to all you Minnesotans with a brain. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be that many of you.

How come Minnesota doesn’t have a runoff election like some other states when a candidate doesn’t reach the 50% threshold? I gotta say Louisiana elections are looking better and better by comparison.

saltydogg14 on December 10, 2008 at 12:31 PM

Not relevant. The problem here is that the gap between the first candidate and the second candidate is only a few hundred votes. The same problem can happen in a two person race as well.

Why do governers get to select replacements for Obama, Biden, ect. But in this case, the senate selects? I disagree with selected not elected in any way, shape, or form. Let Minnesota have a runoff election and let the people decide.

aceinstall on December 10, 2008 at 12:41 PM

Obama’s seat is open. This seat is not open, it’s undecided.

taken a considerable amount of pride in Minnesota’s electoral processes,

You’ve taken a considerable amount of pride in the fact that an unfunny joke like Al Franken can come that close to being your Senator?

- Al Franken -

Governor Tim Pawlenty could appoint Coleman as a temporary placeholder…

…or Al Franken could show some class and concede.

About half of them are clear votes for one candidate or the other–if the Canvassing Board decides to ignore the campaigns, they could make a 10-second decision for about 2,000 ballots, which would take 5 to 6 hours.

Another large group of them don’t have filled ovals, but an X or check mark in the oval, with the Presidential and House candidate marked in the same way. If the Canvassing Board decides to either accept all such ballots based on “intent of the voter” or reject them all as unfilled ovals and undervotes, the decision could be made once for all such ballots, although the two campaigns might want to get a count of how many such ballots favor each candidate, to decide whether to argue for acceptance or rejection “en masse” of such ballots.

There’s another group, about 10-15% of the ballots I’ve seen, where a voter fills in ovals for two candidates, and draws an X over one oval, as if he/she filled in a “wrong” oval, then changed his/her mind, crossed out that vote, and voted for another candidate. To be fair, the Canvassing Board would have to decide to either reject all such ballots as overvotes, or accept a vote for the candidate with the non-crossed-out oval in all cases. From the sample I’ve seen, counting these ballots would favor Franken, but there are some for Coleman as well.

There’s another group, about 5% of the challenged ballots, where there’s a clear vote for Senate, but the voter wrote in the same name for two or more other offices, such as county judges or soil commissioners. These are challenged on the basis of an “identifying mark”, assuming the voter wrote him/herself in for those positions. But what if they wrote in a friend’s name? If there is only one vote for Senate, and no write-in for Senate shouldn’t these votes count?

The challenge process might be speeded up if the Canvassing Board could separate the challenged ballots into several groups:

Clear vote for one Senate candidate, without extraneous marks

X or check mark for one Senate candidate

X or check mark next to one Senate candidate’s name, outside the oval

Two ovals filled, one crossed out

Clear vote for one Senate candidate with write-ins for other races.

Others, which might be tough calls.

Then, for each group except the last, the campaigns argue with the Canvassing Board, and a decision is made to either reject all ballots in the group, or count all the votes based on “intent of the voter”, so that the same criteria are used for all challenges. Once such a decision is made, the Canvassing Board assigns votes to an entire pile (or rejects them all) without further arguments from the campaigns.

Of the 457 ballots I checked, only 14 (about 3%) did not show a clear voter preference. If the same trend continued statewide, 3% of 4,000 challenges would be about 120 ballots, which would only take 6 hours at 3 minutes per ballot.

However, the key to a rapid resolution of the challenges would be for the Canvassing Board to separate all the challenged ballots into the groups listed above (and possibly others), then make a decision to either reject all ballots in a group or count them all based on the intent of the voter.

An honorable man (which Franken is most assuredly NOT) would simply acknowledge the results, acknowledge defeat and walk away. Franken is working on pure ego now (and perhaps some New York style hubris).