Al Franken, who was a friend of Paul Wellstone, does have a ton of class. ;-)

heh – speaking of frivolous lawsuits:

Todd Rokita, Indiana’s asshole of a Secretary of State, got punked Tuesday.

Rokita, of course, is an outspoken defender of one of the strictest photo ID laws in the nation. In the weeks leading up to the election, he also recommended filing charges related to bad voter registrations delivered by ACORN, the community activist group.

Then, a funny thing happened to Rokita on the way to voting:

His own absentee ballot was challenged by precinct poll workers.

According to Marion County election officials, his messily inscribed signature upon checking in to vote — he signed it “Todd Rokita” — did not match his neat poll book signature of “Theodore Rokita.”

Todd had to file a provisional ballot.

heh. Fuck you Todd.

http://www.indystar.com/articl…..1304/LOCAL

Josh has an interesting take on the race.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c…..243631.php

Thanks PW.

digg

I have a question. Did any big name dems campaign for Franken?

Thanks jayt.

I wished Tinklenberg who ran against the fork-tongued Michelle Bachmann had not conceded until every vote was counted on election night. I have this feeling Tinklenberg could have won it or it was close enough that a mandated recount would have been done. Conceding to Mrs. Satan was a bummer.

Sara did an absolutely fabulous post on the history of Minnesota’s election recount law a couple of days ago over at the Great Orange Satan. It was buried pretty far down in the comments, and it would be good to see it here, too. Everything is written into the law, on account of a contested election in 1962, which left Minnesotan’s with a problem they proceeded to fix in a non-partisan manner. Could never happen today. The Republiks wouldn’t allow it. It looks like a good law; all states should copy it.

Tinklenberg didn’t seem like a strong enough opponent. We’ll win next time.

Good Morning Phoenix Woman and Firedogs,

been following this story and the Fairmont Sentinel aspect is yummy.

this aint no Florida –

diaried a WaPo article late last night about Obama having spent months and tons of resources in an effort to immediately overturn or rescind some of the worst policy crap of the last 8 years. the article described one effort in which Obama had dozens of wonks virtually locked away to pore over everything and identify both the “what” and the “how”

and immediately thought of the so called Brooks Brothers riot – thinking of how they had fake wonks putting on a fake show. Meanwhile our side is busy doing the real work with real wonks

If only recount laws like Minnesota’s had been on the books in Florida in 2000 . . .

That one’s too forkin’ funny for words!

Someone wrote a diary at DKos on that subject too. I’ll see if I can find it.

They noticed that story over at the Great Orange One, also.
The reaction was very positive.

Yes. We. Can. (and we will!)

Found it.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..736/656240

Here it is:
Out Long National Nightmare Is Over by SusanG.

Yeah, well, after the economy, climate change, etc. I sure hope we finally kick the privateers out of the election process..hopefully, get and more or less standardized ballot all our this land.

PS: I’m just starting to post here, been wasting my time on some other blogs………..:o) So, “hi”

That is good news…been keeping me up at night, some….

hi there, ‘allo, and welcome.

Welcome, Kassandra. Don’t be a stranger. Namaste

I have a question. Did any big name dems campaign for Franken?

Snarkassandra?

Welcome to the Lake.

I believe this Kassandra is not the Cassie we know.

To solai. Gee, how long has the reply link been there?

That powerline link is hysterical. Not only does it read like it was written by someone with a fifth grade education but the Coleman article they quoted reads like it was written as an orwell spoof of language misuse. It is so obfuscatory that Coleman’s campaign could be chewing up baby seals on the lawn and you wouldn’t be able to figure it out. Also, you should all definitely click on the link to “sweetness and light” which Powerline thinks is a discussion of how Coleman’s seat is being stolen. Its actually a link to an observation that the fact that newspapers are reporting that the country is in crisis (two wars, financial meltdown) is an Alinsky/Obama/Hitler like trick to enable Obama to seize dictatorial powers.

aimai

welcome to the Lake !

“” yellowsnapdragon November 9th, 2008 at 6:49 am
If only recount laws like Minnesota’s had been on the books in Florida in 2000 . . .”"

Yes, under Minnesota Recount laws, Gore would have won, but ironically, Gore never asked for a statewide recount.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..Nov11.html

“”But if Gore had found a way to trigger a statewide recount of all disputed ballots, or if the courts had required it, the result likely would have been different. An examination of uncounted ballots throughout Florida found enough where voter intent was clear to give Gore the narrowest of margins.”"

Had the 3 county recount Gores requested been completed, Bush would have still won.
“”The study showed that if the two limited recounts had not been short-circuited — the first by Florida county and state election officials and the second by the U.S. Supreme Court — Bush would have held his lead over Gore, with margins ranging from 225 to 493 votes, depending on the standard.”"
= = = =

Back to the MN Race.

The Shameless attempts by the local Right Wing Smear Machine is geared strictly to cast aspersion on the integrity of the process. What they won’t admit, is that the canvassing process genera;;y yields major shifts in the numbers as counts are double checked and verified. Team Franken shared a GREAT spread sheet to shows these normal anomalies over the years:

http://www.alfranken.com/page/…..rences.pdf

Team Franken has been riding the high road this entire time. Sen Chameless and his staff have been in the gutter, going from claiming victory, to demanding every vote count, to going to court to stifle the process. They have been all over the board!

Flash
http://Centrisity.com

Cantor (R-VA) on Fox claiming that the R defeat in this election is due to Rs not keeping up with innovation and technology. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be that their tired old ideas have been proven wrong.

“”I have a question. Did any big name Dems campaign for Franken?”"

Hillary made two trips during the last weeks of the campaign. One was a big rally in the metro, and a few days later she hooked up with Franken in Northern MN, Duluth I think?

And President Bill Clinton Himself was here in between those visits.

Flash
http://centrisity.com

Had the 3 county recount Gores requested been completed, Bush would have still won.

Trying to game the recount is part of the problem. Gore was too clever by half. Obviously in cases like that and the current one in Minnesota, all votes must be (re)counted. Common sense.

Here in Mississippi, some of the locals are going ape shit over this election. Whitey has been keeping the Black guy down so long around here they don’t know how to act. You’re not gonna believe the following, but if you want to read about an institutional attempt to abuse our SCHOOLCHILDREN….

Outlawing Mississippi Enthusiasm for Obama
http://thetimchannel.com/?p=245

Enjoy.

We don’t have many true progressives in the Senate, and there is no doubt that Franken is truly a progressive. His books and radio show have been key in my political reawakening, and I’d dearly love to see him in in the Senate.

I have much more confidence in Minnesota’s recount than what’s going on in Alaska. There is just too much corruption and stoopidity up there.

Solai asked if any Big Name Democrats campaigned for Franken.

Off the top of my head? Bill Clinton; Al Gore; Hillary Clinton (also made an ad); Tom Harkin . . . you get the drift.

Brokaw just said ‘moving to the center right’. WTF, still with the repub talking points. That B.S. needs to be knocked down fast.

new post upstairs, folks.

ohhhh, that’s ‘rich’ jayt…..

and just found something else ‘rich’ while looking for a video for you–

just posted it on oxdown. if it ‘took’.

AP stole footage from someone and recently took it down from their official youtube site, thanks. h/t!!!

Heh. Maybe he was talking about center right in the context of the whole planet, not just the USA. As in we are moving away from radical fringe right to center right./s

Big Dan is all over that story about Royal Dutch Shell confiscating Iraqi natural gas. Check out all the links as you scroll through the text on his home page:

http://bigdanblogger.blogspot.com/

brooks thinks that if the america public gets a sensible health care policy we will freak out (in a bad way).

Too late………

Hilary Clinton & Franken were in Hibbing, MN Oct 21st. I was at the rally, est 5000 people. All the local pols were there along with Klobuchar & Oberstar. I was impressed with the large number of very enthusiast young people.
It was noticeable that a retired Dem senator, Doug Johnson, was not in attendance. He had openly endorsed Normie Coleman. Dems here are not happy with Doug, to say the least.

Ahhhh….. Brooks I can’t stand that guy. He loves to put down the boomers of which I am one. Baby faced MF. They all try to discredit what happened back then cause it scares the bejesus out of them.

Yup. :-)

How is it up on Da Range this cold frosty morning?

Oh, that’s wonderful!

Got linky?

Phoenix Woman@46:
Pretty nippy up here. About 23 deg right now. Very rude of Mother Nature after several days of temps in the 50’s and a few hitting 65.

I really only know alittle about the race. But good luck to Franken, and out with one more sleazy Repub. Let them all go shop at Nieman’s and leave the scene, please. And I so hope the recount pays off to show the system working. The country needs that and a serious commitment to reforming our election apparatus. Cheers, B

Couple major points to keep in mind in discussing the Minnesota Senate Recount….

It is important to conceptually understand that BY LAW, a Recount is a normal part of Minnesota Election Law. It is not done at the request of the candidates or Political Parties, it is done so that the State properly awards the certificate of election to the candidate who got the most votes. The Law says that a recount is triggered when the State Canvas Board finds that the margin between or among candidates is less than one half of one percent, .5. In smaller races, results where the candidates are divided by less than 100 votes. It is Mandated, Required — IT IS THE LAW. It has been the law since about 1965, though some aspects of the law were refined in the late 1980’s when we did a complete overhaul of our election system.

It is highly unlikely that any court will accept jurisdiction for any aspect of the recount until after the Recount Process is complete. Virtually all aspects of the recount are detailed in the state statutes, for instance, how to interpret intent of the voter. It isn’t up to one off court decisions or rules by the Secretary of State — such arguments have no place in the process until the whole Recount is complete. Until the recount is complete, the costs of the recount are covered by the State of Minnesota — because a recount is required by an election result that is covered by the trigger. Should someone want to Contest the result, they have to wait for the whole process to be complete. Then a suit contesting a result could be brought, but it would have to be based on the State not following the specifics of the Election Law. And it would be up to the person(s) bringing the suit to cover all costs.

One major difference between Florida 2000, and Minnesota 2008 is that Florida law did not have a trigger requiring a recount. They had left it up to parties and candidates to petition for recounts, and left open what exactly would be recounted (specific counties for instance). That is Not the Case in Minnesota. A Senate Race is the whole state, thus the recount is, by law, the whole state. A very close Presidential Race would be treated the same way.

A Recount does not in any way depend on results collected Election Night and thereafter by the County and State Canvas Boards. Once a Recount is triggered, essentially you start over. Results of the first count, while interesting, are off the table. The final decision is determined by the results of the Recount Only. Our system uses paper ballots where voters mark their choices by darkening an oval, and the ballots are then run through scanners in the precinct. Scanners are set to reject Overvotes — that is if the voter marks more than one candidate in a choose one race, and the voter can correct their ballot. Scanners cannot pick up Undervotes, that is someone who does not sufficently darken the oval, makes a checkmark instead, circles the name of a candidate etc. A recount picks up these obvious votes, because it is done with two poll workers eyeballing every ballot — state law defines intent of the voter as the standard, and counters and canvas boards apply that standard.

When you write an election law you have to understand that your universe of voters includes the young and the old, the well educated and the uneducated, Native English Speakers, and non-English speaking new citizens, and they all have exactly one vote. Your System and your law needs to be non-discriminatory in its application. You are not grading people on how well they fill in bubbles, you are measuring the intent of the voter, and your law has to support that intent. Thus a good recount law captures voter intent that was not picked up by scanners during the first count. We know from experience with recounts that about 2 votes per thousand ballots will be found in a recount — thus this contest with 2.9 million votes should have approximately 6000 additional votes that will be counted. In most cases we won’t know whether they were counted by the scanner in the first round — voter may have used their own light pencil or pen instead of the provided dark black felt pen. (This year I took my pen back, and took another one as I understand scanners, and I wanted dark black marks — but many people don’t necessarily understand scanners. No reason their vote shouldn’t count. Pens run low on Ink.)

In an election where you have a point or two difference between candidates, the scanner missing a few votes is of little consequence. If Franken and Coleman were seperated by 50 thousand votes, the likely 6000 that the scanner didn’t pick up would not change the result. But in a very close race it matters a lot, thus the protection of a triggered Recount in such circumstances.

When we modernized our Election System in the late 1980’s the Legislative Commission which studied the entire system between sessions of the Legislature, spent a great deal of time looking at all possible systems, and bringing in experts to provide their views. I sat in on several of the sessions for a legislator on the commission who was out of the country for several meetings — just closely listening and taking detailed notes. I think what eventually persuaded the Commission to recommend the paper ballot/scanner in the precinct system was testimony from the people at the University of Minnesota who own and Internationally administer the MMPI — Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It was then about 50 years old, and over the years they had used any number of systems to measure survey responses — machines, punch cards, sort cards, dials, you name it — and they had the data showing that ticking off names on a paper list with a pen or pencil was the most accurate and universal method known to man. It should surprise no one that a Minnesota Election Ballot, and the means for scoring it, looks an awful lot like the MMPI. They had the best data, and above all they were not selling an expensive system and services. It was, in the end, just a matter of writing election law around that well proven measurement system we already owned.

I have no idea how the recount will come out in the end, except I know it will be trustworthy and accurate, and it will reflect Minnesota Law. It will be interesting to watch who tries to Jazz up something that was intended to be pretty boaring.

I think it would have been an exercise in futility. Tinklenberg lost by 12,000 votes. The IP candidate drew over 40,000 votes. I live in her district and canvassed for Tinklenberg for months………….believe me I had hoped she would be defeated more than anyone understands.