The Will of the Voter

[SkinBasket]

Here we are again 8 years later with the Democrat apparently picking up the votes he needs based upon the "will of the voter." Weird.


This is a vote for Franken. Obviously. Nothing to see here. Move along Minnesota.

For more great examples of how this election is being handed to Franken see an extended list of pictures here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470892,00.html

[Zool]

How effin hard is it to read and then color in an oval? Seriously?

[SkinBasket]

You haven't met Partial have you?

[texaspackerbacker]

Re: The Will of the Voter

Here we are again 8 years later with the Democrat apparently picking up the votes he needs based upon the "will of the voter." Weird.


This is a vote for Franken. Obviously. Nothing to see here. Move along Minnesota.

For more great examples of how this election is being handed to Franken see an extended list of pictures here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470892,00.html

If that's true, how could they possibly justify crap like that?

[Freak Out]

So a vote for Coleman is counted for Franken? That is a vote for Coleman without a doubt. I won't bother to read the link and will take your word that it was counted that way....does Minn have some reforms to make or what? The scanner would say Coleman 100 out of a 100 times so how it was counted for Franken is unfathomable.

[SkinBasket]

So a vote for Coleman is counted for Franken? That is a vote for Coleman without a doubt. I won't bother to read the link and will take your word that it was counted that way....does Minn have some reforms to male or what? The scanner would say Coleman 100 out of a 100 times so how it was counted for Franken is unfathomable.

Problem is, there's several other examples just as confounding as this one in the story. They also discuss the amazing reappearing, or simply appearing, ballot boxes that have boosted Franken's total. God bless Minnesota.

Here's the explanation for the one above:

Here is an example where the Minnesota Canvassing Board claims the vote is clearly for Franken. Voters are supposed to fill in the small oval next to a candidate’s name to vote for that candidate. The board explains its decision as there being "No Dup" (presumably meaning that there was no duplicate ballot), but it is not clear how that would switch what looks like an obvious Coleman vote to a Franken vote.

[MadScientist]

The vote in question here was in fact counted for Coleman. The Star Tribune had an error, not the canvasing board.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/fox-news-finds-typo-blames-liberal.html

The Star Tribune has since corrected it.

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/ballots/index.php?review_date=2008-12-18&index=171

[HarveyWallbangers]

I'm not surprised by this.

[Freak Out]

The vote in question here was in fact counted for Coleman. The Star Tribune had an error, not the canvasing board.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/fox-news-finds-typo-blames-liberal.html

The Star Tribune has since corrected it.
http://senaterecount.startribune.com...2-18&index=171

Democratic - Farmer - Labor? Is that a midwest thing or a Minn thing?

Ok...so it was a mistake made by the MST that FOX picked up on and of course ran with as some evil liberal conspiracy. It's good to know that the process isn't that messed up in Minn.

Whoever it was doesn't like Franken very much or just marked the wrong oval.

Every other vote was for a dem.

[MadScientist]

The vote in question here was in fact counted for Coleman. The Star Tribune had an error, not the canvasing board.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/fox-news-finds-typo-blames-liberal.html

The Star Tribune has since corrected it.
http://senaterecount.startribune.com...2-18&index=171

Democratic - Farmer - Labor? Is that a midwest thing or a Minn thing?

DFL is a Minn thing only. I don't recall the origins of it, someone else can look it up.

Ok...so it was a mistake made by the MST that FOX picked up on and of course ran with as some evil liberal conspiracy. It's good to know that the process isn't that messed up in Minn.

Whoever it was doesn't like Franken very much or just marked the wrong oval.

Every other vote was for a dem.

Which is why it was challenged initially. (The Coleman camp was doing a similar thing of challenging inconsistent votes). The challenge was withdrawn because it was bogus. Coleman also withdrew many of these challenges that were unwinnable and would just annoy the board.

[SkinBasket]

Madscientist, I see your "news" source is portraying the article at Fox News as a claim of conspiracy (per the title: Fox News Finds Typo, Blames Liberal Conspiracy) based on this one vote. If you actually read the FoxNews story you'll see no such claim of conspiracy is made, that the story is listed in the opinion section, and that there are several other examples of double standards and inconsistencies in the determination of the will of the voter. The article concludes:

Ignoring the questions with correcting the typos and discovered ballots in an election judge’s car, the Canvassing Board’s decisions have easily supplied more than the 78 vote lead that the board projects Franken to end up with. Yet, the Canvassing Board’s choices will leave long lasting questions about the legitimacy of any win.

Hardly what I'd call "blaming a liberal conspiracy." More like providing evidence that the Canvassing Board is working diligently to make sure every decision they make benefits Franken. This one typo from the Star Tribune aside, there's still an abundance of questions about the legitimacy of this entire process, from start to finish - several of which are detailed in this article.

But I suppose sites like the highly respected and objective fivethirtyeight.com will continue to try to sweep them under the rug and play up this example, as it serves the cause. Maybe they can help find another ballot box or two while they're at it.

[HarveyWallbangers]

It's messed up. Of course, I'm sure the eletronic machines that ran the original vote and the recount vote was somehow rigged by the Republicans. Sad when I trust a machine over people playing politics. Again, I'm not surprised.

[MadScientist]

Hardly what I'd call "blaming a liberal conspiracy." More like providing evidence that the Canvassing Board is working diligently to make sure every decision they make benefits Franken.

And the difference would be?

It looks like the original article has been changed since it makes no reference to the ballot you posted.

As for the others, they certainly look inconsistent. At some point the reasons will come out, probably in court if these cases are enough to flip the election.

[SkinBasket]

Hardly what I'd call "blaming a liberal conspiracy." More like providing evidence that the Canvassing Board is working diligently to make sure every decision they make benefits Franken.

And the difference would be?

I suppose your inability to see the difference is the reason you get your "news" from places like fivethirtyeight.com.

It looks like the original article has been changed since it makes no reference to the ballot you posted.

As for the others, they certainly look inconsistent. At some point the reasons will come out, probably in court if these cases are enough to flip the election.

Typically an article is corrected when there's a mistake in it. As for the rest of the "inconsistent" ballots, your position is laughable. Let the canvassing board do everything in it's power (which it has and which this article demonstrates pretty clearly) to stir up votes for Franken, declare the will of the voter divined and the new count perfect, then make Coleman take the results to court to attempt to correct all the politically corrupted decisions which were made, at which point the dems will argue the court has no higher authority in the matter than the canvassing board with the chances of drawing a liberal judge who agrees pretty high in Minnesota. Excellent plan. Not for Minnesota and the voters there, but that's never been a concern of Franken's anyway.

[Badgerinmaine]

Democratic - Farmer - Labor? Is that a midwest thing or a Minn thing?

DFL is a Minn thing only. I don't recall the origins of it, someone else can look it up.

They were part of my dissertation, so I will go ahead
Minnesota, like a number of Midwestern states, had some strong third parties--usually populist or liberal ones--because the Democrats in those states tended to be very weak and very conservative. Wisconsin had a Progressive Party that was very powerful during the 1930s and well to the left of the Democrats. Similarly, Minnesota had a strong left-leaning party called the Farmer-Labor Party that was the chief opposition to the Republicans because their Democrats were very weak. Around the end of World War II, Hubert Humphrey, then the mayor of Minneapolis, helped engineer a merger of the Farmer-Labor Party and the Democrats (and controversially purging the new party of Communists who had been in the FL) to form the new Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, or DFL. The party still has "loyalty to trade union principles" in its bylaws.