AP Uncalls Minnesota Senate Race

[kpete]

Source: Associated Press

AP Uncalls Minnesota Senate Race
12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is uncalling the Minnesota Senate race.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman finished ahead of Democrat Al Franken early Wednesday in the final vote count, but his 571-vote margin falls within the state's mandatory recount law. That law requires a recount any time the margin between the top two candidates is less than one-half of one percent.

The AP called the race prematurely.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount won't begin until mid-November at the earliest and will probably stretch into December. It will involve local election officials from around the state.


Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMpTmr96V5hKIfyHT4Av4jsVQgrQD948RG485

[whistle]

1. Smells like vote theft, Franken should not concede!

[sohndrsmith]

2. AP Uncalls Minnesota Senate Race

Source: Washington DC -AP


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is uncalling the Minnesota Senate race.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman finished ahead of Democrat Al Franken early Wednesday in the final vote count, but his 571-vote margin falls within the state's mandatory recount law. That law requires a recount any time the margin between the top two candidates is less than one-half of one percent.

The AP called the race prematurely.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount won't begin until mid-November at the earliest and will probably stretch into December. It will involve local election officials from around the state.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMpTmr96V5hKIfyHT4Av4jsVQgrQD948RG485

[grannie4peace]

3. i hope franken wins!!!

[Dennis Donovan]

4. Recommended!!!

[proud progressive]

13. what about the brewing scandle?

if he goes back to the senate and this 'kickback' thing blows-up, will that not just be another stain on his wonderful party?

[DUgosh]

5. Why the wait till mid November?

SOunds like the fix is in.

[hootinholler]

20. Generally there's a two week period for absentee ballots to arrive. n/t

[onehandle]

6. Too much of a margin in my opinion. Thank the third party candidate for giving Coleman 6 more years.

Fuck third parties!

[blueclown]

25. 521 votes is hardly a large margin.

Franken could pull ahead easily.

[creeksneakers2]

7. What is going on with provisional ballots?

[clear eye]

8. Aaaack! Chain of custody for the ballots!!

I'm having palpitations. It's not Coleman that I think is a potential thief, but the miserable Republican machine. Anyone around from the FLP who can tell us about security measures both in transit from each precinct and in storage? Will they be counting on locks and burgler alarms or have they hired human security for the warehouse?

[SavageDem]

11. I was an Election Judge yesterday in MN.

Might not allay your fears much, but ballot security is not that tight. After all votes are tabulated, they are placed into ballot boxes and sealed with a label signed by the Election Judges. The head Election Judge then throws the boxes in his/her car and delivers them to City Hall. I doubt there is a standard for ballot storage.

This is an amazing result. There are approximately 4200 precincts in MN. As of two minutes ago, CNN has 1,211,089 for Franken, 1,211,403 for Coleman, a difference of 314 votes. That's essentially a ONE BALLOT difference every 14 PRECINCTS! And I'll tell you this: just reviewing absentee ballots in *my* precinct last night, there was a lot more than one ballot that was unmarked in the Senatorial race. Absolutely unbelievable. If there's just one miscounted vote every 14 precincts, it can flip to Al just like that!

I SO did not want it to come down to this. I'm furious with Dean Barkley, and sent him an angry email in the middle of the night last night. He truly Naderized Al - along with the newly-turned-right-wing-rag Star Tribune, which buries coverage of Coleman's criminal activity after they endorsed the slimeball.

[LiberalFighter]

16. If the head Election Judge is the only person transporting the boxes -- that is wrong.

It should be required that a Republican and a Democrat be present during the transport.

There should NEVER be only one person involved in transporting election results from the election site.

[SavageDem]

18. From the MN 2008 Election Judge Guide, page 38, "13.4 Delivering Election Returns":

As soon as possible, one or more judges deliver the required election materials to the clerk or county auditor.
These materials include:

1. sets of ballot counter tapes or summary statements;


2. sealed envelopes or containers with all voted ballots


3. all spoiled ballots;


4. polling place rosters;


5. completed voter registration applications, Election Day rosters; and


6. other election materials (as directed by your clerk).

That's as specific as it gets!

[LiberalFighter]

26. They need to require a Democrat and a Republican to travel together for the delivery.

[clear eye]

19. The Star-Tribune was giving slanted coverage even before they endorsed Coleman.

Having been a longtime listener to Franken's Air America Radio show, I was following the race a bit. I saw them distorting stories about Franken's taxes, making it appear that he was evading paying them, and, as you say, downplaying Coleman's outright criminal acts. I think that paper's early smearing of Franken is what gave Barkley a rationale to enter the race. Especially since the paper still has credibility from its pre-wingnut days.

Yes, I agree with you. Franken could take it. That's why I'm so nervous about the ballots. Everyone knows which are the Democratic areas, so if one of Rove's protegees decides he's going to be a hero and keep the nation safe for neocons or fundamentalists or whatever, he'll know from just which places to steal or swap a box. Ten days is enough time to devise and execute a plan.

On the up side, I heard that the recount, unlike the original count, would be manual. If that's so, handcounting will often reveal marks the machines missed. Correct me if I'm wrong about going manual for the recount.

Thank you for the info even if there is no Minnesotan ballot Fort Knox. Do you know if the validity of the provisional votes are being determined in the interim? Especially in Democratic counties?

Oh, and apologies for calling the party the FLP when it is actually the DFL. I realized my mistake too late to edit.

Again, thanks.

[SavageDem]

23. I started to wonder about that, too.

Looked it up in the state statutes, and yes, it is a manual hand recount!

No worries on FLP - trying to figure out if it was the Furiously Loud Party or what... ;)

[ExPatLeftist]

9. "Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount won't begin until mid-November..."

"...at the earliest and will probably stretch into December. It will involve local election officials from around the state."

In other words, 'we ain't gonna hurry on this and you're really putting us out, Smalley, so take one for Amurkuh and just go ahead and concede already.'

Seriously, it looks like they are strong-arming him. I really hope that he will not give in.

[SavageDem]

12. Negative on that.

Mark Ritchie is a good guy and a staunch Dem. He has no reason to strong-arm Al. I really think it's just the mechanics of the thing. You've got to get machines and people to run the process through again. I can tell you from experience that it takes a while to run the ballots through the optical scanner! We did 200+ absentee ballots last night, and that took probably 40-45 minutes. Multiply that by 10 for my precinct alone and you're at about 7 hours. And that's not factoring in ballot custody, unpacking, repacking, a break once in awhile, etc. Multiply that by 8 precincts for my city, and you're talking over 2 solid days - no breaks - of work. And that's after you get all the other mechanics worked out!

It'll be an arduous process, that's all.

[ExPatLeftist]

14. OK, it just seemed very poorly worded, as if to imply that Franken should give up...

But that was just my first reaction. It is really a shame it will take so long and I think Franken will be getting pummeled the whole time for the same kind of crap that was flung at Gore. I hope that this Al holds out to the bitter end, unlike the other Al. (With all due respect to Gore, which is very much indeed).

[Thor_MN]

28. Mark Ritchie might not be strong arming, but Sleazy Norman already is

I heard him on the radio on the way home this evening saying that Al can "Save all those tax dollars" by specifying that the recount not be done. Change those totals around and Norm would have already filed a lawsuit to guarantee the recount.

They estimated the cost of the recount at $90,000

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. Would you rather the recount be fast, or correct?

The the Congress does not convene until January. What is the big rush?

[ExPatLeftist]

17. "Fast" and "correct" are not mutually exclusive.

And I have no "big rush", I just know that such uncertainty can be very hard on the candidates - and their constituents. And the pressure from the GOP for Franken to cave, along weith smears and dirty tricks, will be unbearable, a la 2000, on a smaller scale.

[Plucketeer]

10. Dear Al.........

... DO NOT CONCEDE to that lying shitbag, Coleslaw. Make him wait while his dressing turns rancid. :puke:

[defendandprotect]

21. Do they have PAPER to count or is this computer voting -- ???

[SavageDem]

22. MN uses a paper ballot with ovals to fill in - like taking the PSAT/ACT/SAT

Then, depending on precinct, ballots are either hand-counted or run through an optical scanning tabulator. We were using the ES&S Model 100 in our precinct. The software update on it was 1996 - or at least it was programmed to display that! - and I feel fairly confident that it was tallying votes correctly. My heavily neocon precinct came in roughly 1100 vs 1000 (McSame vs Obama), which is far closer than I would have predicted the Big O would have come here.

Curiously, many cross-votes on the absentee ballots I reviewed: Obama for President, Coleman for Senate. Go figure.

[Blaq Dem]

27. At least they'll have a paper trail.

I noticed McCain and Palin voting on optical scanning ballots. If it's good enough for them, then it should be good enough for everyone else. Yet, they place Diebold machines in poor precincts where the constituents hardly knows how to use computers.

[JudyInTheHeartland]

24. YES!

We can't let Coleman win this one.