The Book Franken Won't Write...Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the VOTE

Ms. Janicek

We did have a process in which we tried to count all the votes accurately and consistently. The result was certified by a tripartisan panel of (for the most part) Minnesota judges.

I suspect that, after the court proceedings, when Coleman has lost (and he will lose, ma'am) you will not be satisfied with the result, even though you say you will be. I look forward to your dour countenance gracing the screen on Almanac nattering on about the "stolen election."

Cheers.

Jason

Dave Mindeman refutes WSJ point by point http://www.mnpact.org/sblog/blog.php?id=1535

Media Skewing the Facts on Recount
Re: Funny Business in Minnesota
In which every dubious ruling seems to help Al Franken.

The Journal has been regularly slamming our election system as if 2000 Florida were airtight in comparison. Here are just a few of their assertions:

Last month, Mr. Franken's campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had "lost" 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge -- officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night -- the Canvassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes.

A few facts are slightly askew. Franken's campaign didn't make any charge that the Hennepin precinct had "lost" the votes....it was volunteered by the Hennepin election officials -- and the evidence is strong that there is an envelope missing. There has also been a kind of "latching on" to a misstatement made by Cynthia Reichert, a Hennepin county election official, that indicated that some ballots may have been run through a second time as an "explanation" for the numbers discrepancy. That statement never had any basis in fact. The main factual number is this:

Franken spokesman Andy Barr said 2,029 voters are listed as casting legal ballots on Election Day, with only 1,896 ballots counted in the recount.

Franken's campaign didn't make those numbers up...those are facts and Reichert recanted here double counting assertion when those numbers were made clear.

Here's another one:

Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, which means he's benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.

Unlike the 133 missing ballots, these are ballots that were found in a jammed machine. As the Star Tribune reported:

A machine jammed in Maplewood, resulting in 177 ballots going uncounted until the final day of the recount in Ramsey County.

Another point left out by the WSJ editorial was that the canvassing board made no ruling.... the Ramsey county officials found a mistake and added the votes to the recount....as you are supposed to do in a recount. And I cannot find any indication that this precinct shows more ballots than voters.

And then finally, we get to the absentee ballots:

Counties were supposed to review their absentees and create a list of those they believed were mistakenly rejected. Many Franken-leaning counties did so, submitting 1,350 ballots to include in the results. But many Coleman-leaning counties have yet to complete a re-examination. Despite this lack of uniformity, and though the state Supreme Court has yet to rule on a Coleman request to standardize this absentee review, Mr. Ritchie's office nonetheless plowed through the incomplete pile of 1,350 absentees this weekend, padding Mr. Franken's edge by a further 176 votes.

The editorial fails to put out that Coleman-leaning counties were asked by the Coleman campaign to re-examine ballots that they had already rejected under state statute rules. They did so and stayed with their original interpretation of the rejected ballots. All counties went through their rejected ballots....not just the "Franken leaning" counties. And the Coleman request to "standardize" the absentee review was unnecessary because state statute clearly indicates what is involved with any ballot rejection. Mr. Ritchie, also did not plow through the 1350 pile..... the Secretary of State personnel counted the 930+ ballots that were left after the campaigns vetoed ballots they considered suspect as per orders of the Supreme Court.

And yet one more incorrect assumption:

Both campaigns have also suggested that Mr. Ritchie's office made mistakes in tabulating votes that had been challenged by either of the campaigns.

Mr. Ritchie's "office" did not tabulate the challenge votes... it was the canvassing board, which included Ritchie and four sitting judges, that examined the ballots and rendered their interpretation of voter intent as required by state law.

The Wall Street Journal is trying very hard to make a case that this process was skewed in favor of Franken. And while a number of mistakes and discrepancies have fallen Franken's way, this is probably more of an indication of the need for election machinery upgrades in Democratic leaning areas that may have less resources than the suburban strongholds and lighter turnout areas that the GOP does well in.

Everything about this recount was done in the open with multiple witnesses and representatives of the campaigns.

Accusations of "stealing" an election here are simply wishful, made up thinking. And not so much by the Coleman campaign, as by a national GOP party that thinks 2000 Florida is the standard for contested elections.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, I know that you are distraught, even devastated by the results of the Canvassing Board in the Senatorial recount, but , in the words of the Bard, "the lady doth protest too much, methinks." In a recount (conducted under Minnesota law) and commended nationally, you nonetheless state that you are "sickened by the grandstanding of each of the five members," (of the Canvassing Board) -- four Judges and the Secretary of State whose conduct of the proceedings was, to use your word "transparent" and adhered to their responsibilities. Yet you state that the Judges should "know better" and that Mark Ritchie is "not inculcated with concepts like equal protection," managing to impugn the integrity, intelligence and responsibility to their oath of all five with the sweep of your pen. Shame, shame.
I understand that you are not used to fairness in election returns, and I don't recall a word of protest from your lips when George W. Bush was placed in office without winning either of his two Presidential elections, and in fact losing one by over a half-million votes. But that was okay, because the courts, or the result, went in your favor. Well, this contest is not over based on the lawsuit launched by the Coleman camp today (recall his statements on election night when it appeared he was ahead by almost the same total which favors Franken, that the decent thing to do would be to concede, and not burden proceedings, taxpayers or the courts with additional angst or cost) and I have faith in the court system in this state and its fairness. Minnesota courts, as you know, are among the most respected in the nation by most of us, if not you.
You cite as your one source Rupert Murdoch's Wall St. Journal. Surely you could have found something more credible when it comes to a respected editorial source. There is a wide gap between journalism and editorial policy, and one is reminded of it when relying on the Journal's editorial pages for objectivity.
Yesterday, when the results were announced, Franken gave a dignified, low key response, standing in front of his home with only his wife Franni at his side -- the sort of response one would expect from a U.S. Senator. Today, Coleman orchestrated a circus with cheering acolytes packing a room as though it was a campaign rally. Typical, and undignified.
Al Franken is not the person you have portrayed over these last months, and either way the final result goes, I have faith that it will be a fair conclusion. In the meantime, perhaps you should stow the vitriol and invective, and practice saying "Senator Franken."

Are you saying that Al Franken did not win the most votes, but rather he was simply able to disqualify enough votes against him in order to win? Because if this is what you're accusing Franken of, then you would probably be the most thoughtful and intelligent conservative who has commented on this recount process. So many conservatives have been rather quick to don their tin foil hats, and claim that everyone from Mark Richie to every single election judge in every single county were members of a massive pro-Franken conspiracy. (Cough Ann Coulter and the Wall Street Journal cough cough)

But it would be much more astute to simply say that it was not fraud that handed this election to Franken, but legal wrangling and political meddling that disqualified certain votes and ensured that others would be counted. The problem with this assertion, however, is that you would also have to accuse Norm Coleman of the same exact thing. Coleman's bids to have certain votes counted and to block other votes were not based simply on principle, but based on the desire for political gain. Just like what Al Franken had been doing. The difference was that Franken was better at it than Coleman was. And I suppose that sucks -- for 42% of Minnesota, that is. Of course, another 42% of Minnesota is rejoicing. And 16% of Minnesota, me included, will be grumbling no matter what.

One doesn’t have to go casting about for “bad guys” or “weak guys” to understand that once the hand recount was started, the election became about process for selecting a senator and not about the people electing a senator. That conclusion is inherent in the process.

First, consider the process of challenging votes. Voter intent was determined subjectively by hundreds of different people in different locations according to their individual interpretations of what constituted intent. Consistency is impossible. A Coleman counter I talked with noted, after viewing the contested votes that the canvassing board was passing judgment on, that both he and the Franken counter he worked with had much more stringent criteria for challenging a vote than some of the votes that went before the canvassing board. In other words, in his precinct, fewer Coleman and Franken votes were challenged than in other precincts. That alone makes the process subjective.

Rather than a “voter intent” standard – which is necessarily subjective – an objective recount would have matched the number of paper ballots against machine totals. If the tallies were within the margin of error, the machine total should have been accepted. A hand recount should only have been performed if the number of paper ballots and the machine total was outside the margin of error. Thus, errors like the misplaced ballots found in the bottom of the replaced machine would have been discovered and properly added to the count. Votes rejected by the machine should not be counted.

Filling out the ballot correctly is part of the process. There is ample opportunity provided to correct mismarked ballots. Objectively rejecting mismarked ballots provides a more accurate election result than subjectively guessing voter intent.

At least, not in the real sense. The fact is that recounts deal with counting physical ballots. The double-counting was based on them counting the original ballot & the corresponding duplicate ballot. Recounts should be about counting only physical ballots.

Several precincts double-counted. The proof is that, after the recount, more votes are now counted than there are names of people who signed in on Election Day. I don't have to call a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.

Rather than me ramble on, I'll simply point you to a post that explains things extremely clearly.

My our my how we grind our axes. What will you say if Coleman was ahead? Republicans have been very successful in stealing elections. I think you are upset that Mr. Coleman has not been able to steal this one. Times they are a changing!!!!

the foggiest idea what you are talking about.
go ahead, explain why you think the so-called double-counting would favor coleman if every instance of missing duplicates were eliminated from the recount (not just the ones Coleman challenged). hell just simply try to explain what the duplicate issue was all about. i'm sure you can't. And eliminating even just franken's so-called double votes would not be enough to overtake franken even if only coleman were allowed to challenge the duplicates (and of course both candidates would be allowed to challenge the missing duplicates if it ever came to that). So, no, no difference in the result here.

And the uncounted absentee votes... Are you kidding? The 400 absentee ballots that you refer to (that both campaigns vetoed btw) probably would benefit Franken based on all statistical models of the counted absentee ballots. And the 600 that coleman wants to thrown in now have been rejected twice (actually three times in a couple of counties) and franken could certainly come up with an equal or nearly equal number anyways. There is no way Coleman makes up ground on the absentees.

The reason Coleman originally never wanted to count any of the falsely rejected absentee ballots was that he knew that franken got a much higher percentage of the overall absentee vote. Unfortunately for Coleman he couldn't hold the lead in the recount and now he's trying to weasel any votes he can.

Finally all the other conspiracies mentioned by the silly WSJ editorial come with no evidence. It's nothing more than 'i don't like the smell of this.' A serious argument this does not constitute. Do some research. Their ridiculous claims have been countered ad nauseum . This is just nonsense. Get over the fact your candidate lost. It happens.