Coleman Vs. Mondale: Anyone looked into it?

[European Socialist]

Wasn't Mondale leading the day before the election?

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It would be more of a surprise if there was no fraud than if there was

Post this on the Minn blog

[dflprincess]

6. There were many reports of precincts running out of ballots that year

and people having to wait for more ballots to be shipped in. There were also stories about some precincts trying to cut off voting at 8pm even though Minnesota law says if you're in line at 8 you get to vote.

Finally, the way the absentee ballots were handled: Absentee voters were given the option of voting again, either by absentee or in their precincts. But many of the absentee voters were not able to get ballots in time to revote. Absentee votes for Coleman were counted but absentee votes for Wellstone were not transferred to Mondale. The reason given was that it could not be assumed that a person who voted for Wellstone would vote for Mondale. Fair enough, but why was it assumed that a person who voted for Coleman instead of Wellstone would not have voted for Mondale instead of Coleman?

And, disinformation was being spread. I know 3 people who received phone calls telling them that if they were going to file absentee they should cross out Wellstone's name and write in Mondale. This was incorrect. Mondale's name was to be written in the write-in area of the ballot. One person who got this called *69'd after she received it, dialed the number and got Republican headquarters. However, once this lie got out, Mike Hatch (State Attorney General) issued a ruling that if the voter's intention was clear (like crossing out Wellstone's name and writing Mondale beside it) the ballot had to be counted. Whether this was done or not, we'll never know.

[serryjw]

2. Supposedly........

The Wellstone Memorial did in Mondale???.......not to mention the 10's of millions Bushit & Co spent on Norm's campaign

[bullimiami]

3. NO WAY. That was robbed.

Cleland was ROBBED.

and more and more and more.

[serryjw]

13. Thats why Wellstone had to go!

After his anti invasion vote in the Senate his numbers sky rocketed. He would have won re-election after Bushit & Co had spent millions.They were out of time with the election only a few weeks away.I heard the memorial service. They didn't do anything wrong that Wellstone would have approved of..........OMG I miss him

[stirringstill]

22. Fiction

The Wellstone Memorial did not do in Mondale. The Republicans and their echo chamber were brilliant and evil in the way they created a fiction that became perceived reality. They pulled a Lynn Cheney after the third debate!

[EMunster]

4. Don't forget Max Clelland...another weird late-day swing...

[seabeyond]

11. not to mention the "robgeorgia" file that was found N/T

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. One had Mondale leading and another had Coleman leading

Voters as volatile as race

BY JIM RAGSDALE

Pioneer Press


Voters in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race have been battered by tragedy, stunned by the uproar over a raucous memorial service and confronted with a new name on the ballot at the last minute.

Like the race, voters are suddenly volatile, and it appears to be affecting polls.

Two competing media polls, one conducted on behalf of the Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio and the other by the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune, have found opposite, mirror-image results in the contest between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Walter Mondale.

A Pioneer Press-Minnesota Public Radio poll suggests that the momentum began swinging in the direction of Republican Norm Coleman following a memorial service for the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone this week. Coleman holds a 47-to-41 percent lead over former Vice President Walter Mondale, according to the poll.

more: http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/4431486.htm

[alittlelark]

8. Your Clinton pic made me sooo happy for a moment...

very cool.

[VTGold]

7. I thought the same thing - can you imagine how many elections will...

..be questioned - very unsettling.

This is the ultimate treason.

[bleever]

9. There are a number of stinkers that are going to get some

serious attention.

Something tells me Wellstone (god bless his soul) was headed for his own "exit poll discrepancy".

[Nordic]

17. I never believed Ah-nold won in California either

I remember trying to check the numbers after the "election" and something like 900,000 votes were "missing" whatever the hell that means, and that's the amount he won by.

I saw almost no support for him in California, and I live here.

[KittyWampus]

19. CA Was Stolen. Candidates Who No One Ever Heard Of Got Too Many

votes in areas where NOONE would have EVER heard of them.

There were A LOT of people on CA ballot. And many of them would only have been known locally- in their immediate neighborhood.

Such candidates got votes in areas far away in distant areas of CA where it is next to impossible that anyone had heard of them.

The GOP was siphoning off votes from Gray Davis... and practising for 2004.

[Nordic]

20. I'm sure the entire recall effort was practice

because we had to vote on the recall itself. Remember?

50% plus one had to vote for the recall and THEN (at the same time) vote for a candidate.

The whole thing was manufactured, and does anyone remember how Richard Riordan (who at the time had a lot of crossover appeal) thought he'd run and suddenly he was out and Arnold was in? Shocked everybody, no explanation, it came down "from the top".

And Darryl Issa, in tears, forced to drop out, when they duped him to spend his own money to get the whole ball rolling in the first place?

The whole thing stunk to high heaven.

[Stevepol]

10. I will never believe that Mondale lost that election fairly.

I followed that 02 election fairly closely and was stunned by the GA results. If there ever was an election what was transparently fraudulent, that was it. Barnes lost on a 16-point swing from a valid poll taken 4 days before the election; Cleland lost on a 13-pt swing. The exit polls were evidently so opposite to the final results they were removed from all web sites. Even now if you look it up you find they are described as being unavailable because they were so far off. But it wasn't the polls; it was the machines. And it couldn't have been more transparent that this was the case. I think the Dems are being punished by God for stupidity. God gave us brains and we act as if we have no use for them. Mondale I believe lost due to the ES&S optical scans. Nothing was audited or recounted, even tho you can audit the scanners. All it takes is a 2-4% tilt in the counting and that's the election. And who will ever find out if nothing is ever audited or recounted. From now on, until auditing becomes law everywhere, every election should be challenged and recounted.

[glitch]

12. Agree on every point. Belated welcome to DU! nt

[DemonFighterLives]

14. No way could turncoat Coleman defeat Mondale

Or Wellstone for that matter. He may be dead, but cannot be replaced.

[Zan_of_Texas]

15. How fair is crashing the plane holding the incumbent who is leading?

Everybody is constantly asking why the congresscritters have no spines. I would guess it's because one of those who refused to kowtow is dead. And one who ran against John Ashcroft is dead.

Given that there are roughly 50 Dem Senators at a given time, what are the odds that a candidate leading in the polls (against John Ashcroft) would crash in a small plane crash, then a candidate leading in the polls (Wellstone) would crash in a small plane crash two years later, and Senate Majority Leader and the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee (Daschle and Leahy) would both get anthrax letters in fall 2001? Four Senators, dead or apparently attacked with a deadly substance.

Okay. Aside from that --

This is a good article spotlighting several of the 2002 races that haven't gotten much attention.

How The Bush Gang Stole
Its Third National Election in a Row

By William Hare <mailto:[e-mail]>
11/29/04
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000869.php

The 2004 election theft marks the third in a row for the Bush Gang. While much has been written about 2000, unfortunately the pivotal 2002 mid-term elections came and went in a torrent, which was the way that Republican strategists wanted it. The one thing they fear is sober reflection followed by solid investigation. Fortunately they have the complaisant mainstream corporate media looking the other way.
The 2002 mid-term elections were viewed as a grand triumph for George W. Bush since he ostensibly “defied” the tradition that incumbent chief executives suffer losses in such contests. While the corporate media saluted him for his efforts and he received congratulations from “liberal” pundit Paul Begala on CNN’s Crossfire, disturbing trends were observed by those detached enough from mainstream media ozone to investigate.

In Minnesota Democrats were united behind Walter Mondale as a replacement for the recently deceased Senator Paul Wellstone, who had perished in a plane crash, against Democrat turned Republican Norm Coleman. After some tough moments Wellstone had weathered well-financed Republican onslaughts to secure a lead in the polls before his tragic demise. Those same polls found Mondale maintaining a lead going into Election Day, upon which a big surprise was recorded and Coleman emerged the winner.

Republican Senator Wayne Allard was running behind in Colorado with the momentum going in the other direction. When the results were revealed he, like Coleman, had won in a final surge that the pollsters failed to detect. The identical phenomenon occurred in New Hampshire, where popular Governor Jean Shaheen, who had been on Al Gore’s short list for the vice presidency in 2000, appeared on her way to the U.S. Senate. The pollsters were once more revealed to be dramatically wrong as John Sununu Jr. pulled through with another one of those 2002 Republican final surges to nip his opponent at the wire.

The most widely observed case of Republicans seemingly clutching victory from the jaws of defeat occurred in Georgia. This is the state where Karl Rove enticed lackluster Congressman Saxby Chambliss to run against Vietnam War hero and incumbent Senator Max Cleland. Despite shameful television ads showing Cleland alongside Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden the incumbent appeared to have weathered the storm and was ahead in the polls, as was Democratic Governor Roy Barnes. On Election Day the Republicans had scored two more of those amazing come from behind victories in the face of negative poll forecasts as Chambliss and Republican gubernatorial candidate Sonny Perdue both won.


MORE

[Nordic]

16. "Dems are being punished by God for stupidity"

You said it, bro.

This is why, as of now, I am done with the Democratic Party.

They've totally ignored the hands in their pockets robbing them blind.

[Carolab]

18. I think Ted should run next time

and kick his little butt. Ted was a Deanie.

[ISUGRADIA]

21. The race between Wellstone and Coleman was close

all year. After Wellstone died and Mondale took his place Mondale held a lead. Then the Repubs distorted the memorial service which caused a backlash which hurt Mondale in the end.

A race with this kind of dynamic is not going to lend itself to real accurate polling. Plus the Repubs did very well in MN in 2002, picking up many state House, Senate seats, the Governorship and some other statewide offices, and defeating a Dem Congressman. A horrible year for the DFL.

[fujiyama]

23. I think it's very possible

that the memorial may have hurt Mondale to some extent, and MN has been trending Rep in recent years.

Still, I think the whole absentee ballot thing raises many questions, especially regarding the Welstone votes not being counted as Mondale votes, but Coleman votes counted with no problem.