No More Minnesotas

If he (Franken) does get in, the radical Stuart Smalley (Frankens character on SNL) can only help us in the end.  He is so so left that he is marginalized at the start.  He'll moan and groan, he'll either divide the democratic party or become ostracized such that he doesn't make the next election cycle.  Sure it's a senate seat but really....what's more poop on an already huge pile of poop.

As for voting machines, rules, ballot handling, etc.,  In my opinion, all minutia easily combatted by a well formed, succint message.  Whenever the public sees us challenging voting results, they perceive us as a whiny bunch of malcontents.  Elections are about public opinion, as part of the next right, let's make it a promise not to give them any more ammo; no matter how small. 

You can only say that we are "losing votes after Election Day" if you accept the premise that the count on Election Day was complete and correct. Since it was done in haste, I doubt that it can be.

The most important thing is that every vote is counted, regardless of whether it fits into the 72 hour window you've come up with. Accuracy is more important than speed.

In cases where there are disputes, send it to the courts - that is what they are there for.

In our system, there is a period of nearly two months between the election and the beginning of the term for a new Senator or Representative.  It is tempting to look at the Minnesota election and say that if Franken wins, there is something corrupt about it.  In an electronic voting scheme, there is no accountability for electronic fraud.  Local governments are notoriously poor at choosing technology, and both sides have an incentive to steal elections by shifting large numbers of votes.  This may already have happened in some states--it is unknown and unknowable.  But here is what Minnesota did right:

Minnesota has a paper  system that can be audited.  It needs a little tightening (lost ballots, sloppy application of standards for absentee voting), but it has proven to be well more than 99% accurate, which would not be an issue in any election except for the basically tied Coleman-Franken race.

Minnesota defined its standards before the election.  The campaigns can debate it, but the reason that the vast majority of the challenges have failed is that the standards were in place, with sample ballots, before this election.  All states should define these standards BEFORE there is a 'Democratic' or 'Republican' position on sloppy marks.  The Star Ledger showed pictures of the disputed ballots, and nearly all of the ballots had 75% of the ballots allotted the same way by the readers.

Minnesota doesn't have a county by county hodge podge of systems like many states do.  Florida 2000 was a patchwork of punch cards, paper, and electronic systems. (I lived there.)

Minnesota's Supreme Court took a step backwards by making the two campaigns 'agree' on standards--expect this to be the next point of contention--but the correct venue for writing standards is an off year, when there is no partisan position on it.

The test of a system of voting is this -- if your side loses a close race, do you trust it?

The mechanics of voting in this country are inexcusable given current technology. 

I can, and have, used my ATM card to get currency in 9 countries on 3 continents.  The banking system verified my identity and my eligibility to withdraw funds, gave me the money, printed a reciept and updated my financial record.  I do not know if the various ATM machines maintained a paper record in addition to the reciept printed for me but I am sure that would not have been difficult.

There is no techonological reason, (and no meaningful legal, moral or political reason), why each and every voter cannot be issued a secure voter id card that provides the same capability as an ATM.  I should be able to walk up to a voting machine anywhere in the country (world?), insert my voter id card, have the Automated Voting Machine (AVM) pull up the appropriate ballot, record my vote, give me a printed reciept and update the voting records in my home precinct.  This is not rocket science.  We have had ATM technology since the mid 70s for crying out loud!!!

Yes, conversion to the new technology would be expensive.  But the current machines are not exactly cheap and think of how many disputed elections could have been settled more easily if we had rolled out AVMs the way we rolled out ATMs.

I really do not see how any of this is a Liberal vs Conservative, or Republican vs Democrat issue.  And as for the black helicopter crowd that is so worried about a national id card; take the tin foil off your head and look at your driver's license.  That train left the station 50 years ago.  Get used to it.

If Al Franken is elected a Senator, I think we can officially say that things can't possibly get any worse.

However, I suspect that when all is said and done, we'll be blessed with Senator Al Franken by the Hair of the Last Dog.

This is what happens when the Democratic Party comes up with a candidate for Senate because Jar Jar wasn't available. That Norm Coleman could only manage a tie to this angry little man doesn't speak well for the Coleman Campaign. Norm was a good guy and had a good record in the Senate. It also speaks to the toxic atmosphere for Republicans post-2005.

Yes, we need to make sure that Election Reform occurs, but the fact remains that the Republican Party right now can't afford to get to the point where it has to worry about a recount. When you have to worry about a recount, you've lost. The D's control the urban voting apparatus and all the mechanisms of fraud that go with that. Ray Malone once related the story told to him by the late John Rhodes of Ohio: if a Republican wasn't leading in Ohio by at least 50,000 votes, he'd lose, because that was the spread needed to make up for the fraud coming out of the Cuyahoga County political machine (that would be Cleveland). The ACORN people like to softpedal this, but fraud is real and it occurs.

Obama learned not to have to depend on the machines by maximizing white liberal votes in Red Counties and Black votes in Blue Counties. That was his secret.

There is no substitute for a Republican Party that believes in itself, believes in what it stands for,  and remains apart from and outside of Washington.  That leads to good candidates and political victories. 

If you have to worry about recounts, you've lost already.

As for Franken, he'll become the poster child for direct mail and those graverobbers over at NewsMax. The man is an extremist and a yeller. That's exactly why he's bad for Minnesota, but good for the Republican Party. 

Karl Rove must have this man on retainer. 

Full electronic voting with a paper trail audit. ... There are traditional Democratic positions.  The NYTimes has been calling for this for years, with Republicans in the opposition.  

Question about this post: Do you object to the Minnesota recount procedure?  Do you think Franken got fewer votes?  Do you think Minnesota should have used it's inaccurate election day counts instead of the more accurate count they have now? 

My first reaction after the 2000 Presidential Election was "How can this happen to us?  How can the US have an election where people question the outcome?"  (Granted, after a few years my main reaction was "THIS guy is PRESIDENT?  He's not competent enough to be a crossing guard who "only" protects a few hundred kids each day, let alone a nation!"... but I digress...)

We should have electronic counting of some sort, where the manner in which you select your candidates is VERY obvious (not more butterfly ballots), with easy to track paper audit trails.  In North Carolina, my ballots have been large (possibly "A" sized sheets) of thick paper/paperboard, which is fed into a machine for counting.  I say throw out the electronic voting machines until they can be made more secure (see "Hacking Democracy" if you want a good, fact-filled scare about voting machines as they stand now). 

Anybody involved in the manufacture or distribution of electronic voting machines should be prohibited from working or volunteering in the political arena.  The head of Diebold, who "guaranteed" Ohio to GW Bush in 2000 may not have done anything underhanded with his machines, but the possibility of impropriety needs to removed.

The same goes for Secretaries of State or anybody else officially involved with the vote.  If you are a SoS, you do NOT run a candidate's state election campaign.  You don't even set foot in one of the candidate's offices.  Clean, open elections require this.

No limit on the amount of time to recount - we run into the BS of the 2000 election where there were plenty of questions remaining, but the courts said "too bad - time's out".  The length of some of these recounts is frustrating, but I'd rather have correct counts than artificially quick ones.

What would help is if bogus charges of "voting fraud" against groups like ACORN did not muddy up the water.  ACORN did submit, as required by law, fake registration forms.  They also noted which ones THEY thought were fake (such as "Mickey Mouse").  Their procedures need to be cleaned up to deter/punish those that create the fake forms.  And what idiots put out the fliers that stated "due to the expected rush, Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats on Wednesday"?  Go after THEM.  And if somebody has a club (nightstick, whatever) in front of a voting place, get them out of there (as they did in Philadelphia).

The last thing we need is another situation where the judges Daddy and Daddy's old boss selected seem to act like Soviet basketball ref's during the 1972 Olympics.  It HAS to be better than that.

The people running elections are volunteers. Many are retirees.

Arrest an old lady who made an honest mistake? Good luck finding volunteers for future elections...

Montana went Republican, so did Missouri?

Please, people, get your facts straight.