(MN) Election judge is dumbfounded her ballot was rejected

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Star Tribune

DULUTH - Shirley Graham was astonished to learn that a lawyer from Norm Coleman's campaign on Tuesday blocked her absentee ballot from being added to the U.S. Senate recount.

"I'm an election judge," said Graham, of Duluth. "I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn't be counted."

Her sealed ballot was among 60 from St. Louis County that were blocked by representatives of Coleman and Al Franken during the first day of a statewide review of absentee ballots that may have been wrongly rejected in last month's election. Under a state Supreme Court ruling, local election officials and the two campaigns must all agree that a ballot was wrongly rejected for it to be sent along to St. Paul for inclusion in the recount.

Coleman's camp, which rejected 59 of the 60 ballots set aside Tuesday in St. Louis County, objected to Graham's ballot on the grounds that the date next to her signature did not match the date next to the signature of her witness, Jack Armstrong.

Read more: http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/36907934.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUec7PaP3E77K_0c::D3aDhUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU

[babylonsister]

1. Oooh, I don't see this working out well for Coleman.

:D

[Xipe Totec]

2. Rolling on the Fucking Floor, Laughing My Ass Off!

This one should not be diminished through abbreviation.

:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:

[Ilsa]

3. Having your vote tossed by the candidate you voted for -- PRICELESS! nt

[npk]

9. I'm sure it was all about the principal of the thing.

Yeaaaah.

Dumb*ss republicans.

[lonestarnot]

11. I don't know MN.

How do we know she voted for Coleman, was it contained within info at the link? I confess, I didn't go there.

[Ilsa]

13. It was the last line of the article. nt

[lonestarnot]

15. Thanks!

[MrsBrady]

44. right!

that's a way to keep in good will with your supporters!

[robinlynne]

4. NA NA NA NA NA Time to wake up America!!!!!!!!

[KamaAina]

5. Coleman's camp, which rejected 59 of the 60 ballots set aside Tuesday in St. Louis County,

presumably did that just because Duluth is a heavily DFL (Dem) part of the state. :eyes:

Do they have Indian gaming up there? Maybe one of the casinos could use a greeter...

[mduffy31]

68. Two Casinos

One in Downtown Duluth and one outside of Cloquet, and yes it is a VERY DFL part of the state, in fact don't bother even running as an IR canidate.

[Duer 157099]

6. It is ironic, but still... why don't the dates match?

(and I didn't know you needed a "witness" for an absentee ballot??? I never have. Or, they've been tossing my ballots too

Yeah, it's easy to write the wrong date, of course. But people need to pay attention to detail, and if what you're signing is a statement saying that you are witnessing someone else signing something (like a notary does) then it just stands to reason that the dates ought to match.

[bertman]

7. Agreed, dotcosm. People are very blase about following details--or cannot comprehend

instructions. Either way it's a mess.

[SoCalDem]

29. Absentee ballots are not for everyone.. The slightest thing can get it squashed

and many times, they are not even looked at for months (except for close races)..

Early voting is different..but absentee ballots are rife with potential problems..

If a particular zipcode is known to be of a certain "flavor", I'm betting that some partisans pay them "special attention", too

[TechBear_Seattle]

56. And yet, voters in Washington and Oregon have absolutely no choice

We've moved to "all mail-in" elections, where EVERYONE casts an absentee ballot whether they want to or not. Assuming, of course, that you get your ballot in the first place, and that it is actually delivered to the polling place, and that you have not made some silly mistake that, at a real polling place, would take ten seconds to catch and fix.

[SoCalDem]

81. I'll bet that the first few times they used the system, some people were confused

but by now, everyone's figured it out.. I wish we did mail ins too..I do not trust the vapor-vote machines..even though we're back to paper now in our area..

ALL states should use the same system when it comes to the nationally-held offices..house, senate..pres

and it should be a simple cardstock ballot..easy to store/scan/re-count.

[LiberalHeart]

8. Well, see, one signed just before midnight & the other just after midnight.

[sgsmith]

12. From a web site:

http://www.longdistancevoter.org/minnesota

Complete your absentee ballot in front of a notary or witness. The notary or witness must be a registered Minnesota voter. The notary or witness is to observe that the ballot is blank before you fill it out, and then witness the action of you filling it out. The notary or witness should do this from afar, however, and not observe how you voted (ie - your selections). Once you've completed your ballot, place it into the provided security envelope. Both you and your witness must sign and date the envelope where in dicated and the witness must write his/her address, to verify that he/she is a registered voter.

_________________________________________________

Seems pretty straight forward that dates should match.

[Scooter24]

16. .

[LynneSin]

36. yes and we never put the wrong date on a check or bill or something else

:eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

46. It shouldn't be necessary to have a person witness another observe them fill out the ballot.

That is asinine. What if a person receives their ballot in the mail and they live alone? What if they live out in the boonies? What if the voter decides late at nite to fill out their ballot? What if the voter fills out part of the ballot and the rest later?

How does the absentee voter know for sure that the person they ask to witness the ballot is a registered voter?


Seems to me that Minnesota just does not trust their citizens to do the right thing when they need to have a registered voter witness their ballot being filled out.

[NavyDem]

66. Or,,,,

What if they are active duty military, and deployed, and the only person from Minn???

[LiberalFighter]

77. That's a good question too. Better yet, is there different criteria just because military?

That would be discrimination. If they don't require military personnel to have their absentee ballot witnessed then why should civilian? Military personnel are NOT more honest than civilian!!

[Beausoleil]

48. So I guess that means

that as a Minnesota voter, when you travel out of state during an election requiring that you vote absentee, you must carry a registered Minnesota voter with you or only travel to places where there is an adequate supply of registered Minnesota voters.

Something here doesn't make sense.

[geardaddy]

70. From the FAQ section of the MN SOS site

Who may certify or witness my application, ballot or FWAB?

Under a new Minnesota law, voters do not need to get a witness to certify their voter registration / ballot request form, ballot, or Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot.

Minnesota state law requires that UOCAVA voters provide one of the following ID numbers when filling out your voter registration / absentee ballot application, if you have them available:

Minnesota driver's license number

MN state ID number

US Passport #

last four digits of your Social Security Number
Remember which number you provide on your voter registration / absentee ballot application and provide the same number with your materials when you return your ballot.

If you do not have access to any of these numbers, you may still submit your voter registration / absentee ballot request form, as long as you swear under penalty of perjury that the information on the form is accurate.

[Beausoleil]

75. That makes more sense n/t

[geardaddy]

67. ...

This part makes no sense:

The notary or witness must be a registered Minnesota voter.

What if you're voting in another state? Overseas?

[Festivito]

79. NO, it does not say it has to be signed on the same date it was sealed.

Nor does it say that the witness must watch you sign the envelope, and if the voter signs at 11:59:55 PM and the witness signs it 10 seconds later, the dates would differ by a day.

EDIT ADD: EVEN THEN, he needs witness only the ballot writing and could sign it at his leisure.

[Abq_Sarah]

18. She's an elections judge

And she didn't check her ballot before mailing it?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering who she voted for.

[NBachers]

22. Well, let's see . . .

Maybe the VOTER signed it on ONE day . . .

and the WITNESS signed it on a DIFFERENT day . . .

then it was sent off in the mail!

See how treacherous these absentee voters are?

[Duer 157099]

26. Then I guess you don't get what the point of the "witness" is?

If the witness actually "witnessed" the person signing it, why would they wait until a different day to sign it themselves?

And if they did not actually "witness" the person signing it, which is why they were signing it a different day, then they are not really a witness are they?

[LiberalFighter]

47. Maybe the election judge filled out the ballot one day and then had a friend

sign it the next day cause there wasn't anyone nearby that was a registered voter.

This part of their election law is totally asinine.

[Bjorn Against]

38. Doesn't matter, that is not a valid reason to reject a ballot under MN law

People give the wrong date all the time, when there are 365 days in a year it is quite easy to lose track of which day it is sometimes. Someone getting their dates mixed up should not be a valid reason for disenfranchisement.

[minnesota_liberal]

41. I agree

1. After looking through the applicable state statutes, I haven't seen anything stating that such an error spoils the ballot.

2. The whole idea of a campaign having the power to "reject" a ballot is ridiculous. Alan Page was right: The MN Supreme Court f*cked up when they ruled that the 2 campaigns had to agree on which previously rejected absentee ballots should be allowed*

* = not his exact words

[minnesota_liberal]

40. I've been using 12/30/08 on all my checks today

Isn't it 12/30/08?

[geckosfeet]

42. Of course - the witness could have had the date wrong - or it could have been misread.

[ShadowLiberal]

45. It doesn't matter, the dates not matching isn't a valid reason for rejecting the ballot under MN law

[On the Road]

52. I Have to Agree

If the law states that a witness must be present when it is signed, then technically it would not seem to be a legal ballot.

What people often do is sign and then realize they need another signature, which they get later. Don't know that is judged under the law -- maybe it's a technicality that shouldn't affect counting the vote.

[Beausoleil]

55. If that is what the law states, then it still doesn't make sense

see post #48.

This implies that you can only vote absentee when there is at least one other registered Minnesota voter present. So you can't travel out of state by yourself and vote. Or maybe I misunderstand the nature of voting absentee.

[On the Road]

58. It Could be That the Law Isn't Written Well

Florida election law, for example, states (or stated in 2000) that absentee ballots have to be postmarked by the election date. Military personnel on ships would not always get such a postmark even if their votes were mailed before the election.

Lieberman was criticized widely (including by me) for dropping challenges to unpostmarked military ballots received after the data of the election. Most of them may have been legitimate, but they did not meet the criteria for a legal vote.

There have got to be precedents. Maybe this is considered trivial and should not be used to disqualify a ballot. But in a recount, it seems you have to follow the letter of the law.

[On the Road]

54. Dupe

[inchhigh]

62. No date required

According to a link at fivethirtyeight.com no date for either the voter or the whitness is required AT ALL so there is certainly no statutory requirement that they match.

[xxqqqzme]

63. A witness for your absentee ballot?

Your verified signature should be all that's needed. Don't need a witness in CA unless you have someone drop your ballot off at a polling place. Then you designated ballot carrier has to sign.

[Gormy Cuss]

64. According to the article, her witness can't believe the dates would be different either. n/t

[droidamus2]

78. Don't know but

Let's say that I fill out my absentee ballot one evening and date it. Does the witness have to be there when I fill it out or just to witness that I put it in the envelope to mail it back? If the witness is just there to verify that the voter is the one that mailed the ballot then that person could be there the next day and sign and date it on that day giving different dates. It doesn't even have to be the next day I could wait a week before I have somebody witness and date my ballot before I send it.

[minnesota_liberal]

10. Expect lots of dirty tricks from Coleman

Now that he's behind in the recount, it's the only way he can win.

[still_one]

14. A coleman voter gets the shaft from coleman, how fitting /nt

[Ian David]

17. Randi Rhodes says Al Franken's difficult election is karmic payback for dismissing her concerns...

... about election fraud and irregularities.

Still, I've donated more money to Al Franken than I've spent on my wife's Valentines and Xmas presents combined.

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. I like Al but his denial of it made me mad

You know after this is over and Al wins, he might be the biggest
advocate for election reform in all of the Senate.


She voted for Norm but norm did want the vote..... that was funny.

[tclambert]

32. Moderators: Can you do something about post #17,

and save this poor guy's marriage?

[kenfrequed]

43. Yeah

I do hope Al wins. I really, really, HATE Coleman. That said I still maintain if we had gone with Jack that the election never would have been this close. Norm would have been forced to run an issues based campaign and he could not have won in Blue Minnesota.

[Ian David]

82. Maybe. But an Al Franken win will take ten years off Bill O'Reilly's life. n/t

[wildflowergardener]

20. way she voted

Ok, now that she has told Norm Coleman how she voted, is there any way he can reverse this and decide to count it. Her ballot has now been identified - it doesn't seem right that he should be able to change his mind now that he knows how she voted - hopefully he can't.

Meg

[SoCalDem]

28. yup.. that would certainly be an "identifying mark"....

Coelman = LOSER

[Pab Sungenis]

51. He can't because

BOTH sides have to agree on including a ballot, and the Franken camp will not sign off on it.

[tomhayes]

21. Maybe

She voted, sealed and signed her ballot about 11:59:59p.m. and her witness signed it at 12:00:01a.m.? Would that be illegal?

-Or-

She was on a trip at sea and signed her ballot, and then the ship crossed the international date line before her witness could sign it.... Who knows???!??


And why do you need a witness signature on a absentee ballot? Don't need it in California, the fact that you received it in the mail and that your signature matches the one on file is all you need.

[sunnystarr]

35. The MN statute has no mention or requirement of a date

So it seems that the date couldn't be used as a qualifier/disqualifier of an absentee ballot. In support of the statute, the actual absentee ballot does not instruct the voter/witness to date it.

[jdadd]

60. "The notary or witness should do this from afar"....

Is tomorrow far enough?....:rofl:

[HEyHEY]

23. How can they toss ballots? On what grounds?

We don't do that here.

[robinlynne]

65. Thank-you! We're working on this concept of importing democracy to our country,

but so far it ain't working so well.

[davidpdx]

24. Coleman is a idiot and I agree with the author of that article

it is an ironic that she voted for Coleman, but it was Coleman's campaign that rejected her ballot. It's nice to see him shoot himself in the foot publicly.

[Mnpaul]

25. Good ole Norm just can't embarass himself enough

Another bad challenge from the Coleman camp. Trimble Fail. I'm sure glad to see their voter disenfranchisement plan is failing.

[tavalon]

27. She voted for Coleman!

The irony slays!

[Hubert Flottz]

30. K&R&LMAO!

[Thor_MN]

31. Yes, it's ironic that Norm rejected 1 vote for himself, but how many votes for Al did he reject?

St. Louis County, where I was born, trends Democratic. In rejecting 59 votes, he probably lost a few for himself, but also blocked a far greater number for Al. Now if he maintains the same standards in counties that skew Rethug, I have no complaints. But I suspect that his team will have completely different standards in red counties and fight to include everything they can.

[Peace Patriot]

33. If the witness duly witnessed the vote, but forgot to sign the form, then

signed it later and back-dated it--to make it agree with the date the voter filled out the AB vote--it would be perjury. If the matter ever came to court, the witness would have to admit back-dating his/her signature to the date the AB vote was written. I think this is most likely what happened--the Elections judge filled out the ballot, her witness witnessed it, they somehow forgot that the witness needed to sign it, or perhaps the witness was called away. Later, before the Elections judge mailed it in, she noticed that the witness had not signed, asked the witness to sign it at that time, and the witness--in great scrupulousness to obey the letter of the law--wrote the real date of the witness signature.

A witness can certainly do this--witness something one day, and sign off on it later. Why not? This does not invalidate what the witness witnessed on a previous date.

This is a crazy objection to a vote.

The article first says Coleman objected to this ballot. Then it says both Coleman and Franken did. It's unclear.

Also, I think it's a crazy ruling that both interested parties have to agree on rejecting a vote. Is there no objective party who can make that judgment, when the two interested parties disagree? Maybe that is why this recount is taking so long (besides its closeness). I think that the interested parties should have a right to observe, and a right to express an opinion, but no right to reject a ballot (even if they agree). That should be left to disinterested, objective election officials or judges.

Neither the candidates nor their reps are election officials. They should have no power over whether a given vote is accepted or rejected. And to make things depend on their agreement is, well...crazy.

MN has some good rules--and one of the better election systems in the country, as to 'TRADE SECRET' code systems--but these two rules seem wrong to me: requiring a witness to an AB vote, and permitting partisans in the contest to reject a vote (even if they have to agree). The partisans are our (the voters') potential employees. They shouldn't have rights over anyone's vote.

[LiberalFighter]

49. Agreed! Candidates should not be allowed to reject or accept a ballot.

They should only be allowed to challenge a ballot and the election judges decide whether to accept or reject.

[creeksneakers2]

34. Norm is trying to cheat

Al is an honest guy who wants all the votes counted. Norm only wants the votes for himself counted.

The Minnesota Supreme Court said that both candidates must agree to a ballot being counted before it can be counted. Since Al agreed to have all the votes counted, then Al agreed to have the ones Norm wants in counted. Since Norm didn't agree to the votes Al thought would go his way, those votes wouldn't be counted. I hope it doesn't work that way but I'm worried that that's how Norm intends to cheat his way into winning the election.

[Bjorn Against]

39. Franken agreed to have all illegally rejected absentee ballots counted...

Coleman only wants some of the illegally rejected ballots counted, and the only way he says he will "compromise" and have them all counted is if another 600 absentee ballots that were rejected for legal reasons are also counted as well. Of course these extra 600 just happen to come from places Coleman would be heavily favored in, they were clearly cherry picked based not on any legal reasoning or consistent standard other than that they would all lean heavily to Coleman. Franken actually has sound legal reasoning behind his standard; count all ballots which were legally cast. Coleman just wants to count the ballots he thinks would favor him, that is undemocratic.

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

37. And Norm is probably wondering...

...why he keeps losing the close ones.

[happygoluckytoyou]

50. why would she be "THE LAST PERSON".... does it only count if it is an ELECTION JUDGE ? ? ?

aren't all men FUCKED EQUAL in the USA?

[Broadslidin]

53. Don't forget, we have dinner at eight.... Norm

And :party: Shirley,
might as well mention to your mother,
you'll be late...

[JeanGrey]

57. Excuse me but BOTH

Coleman and Franken have rejected ballots based on complete stupidity. Both are just as bad as the other.

[asjr]

59. I have to say this: Is anyone here

old enough to remember Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy?

[LisaL]

61. I don't like these rules at all.

Both campaigns have to agree ballots were wrongly rejected? Then Coleman could simply disagree to include the ballots that come from certain areas, leaving Al at a disadvantage. Or Al would have to do the same and try and reject most of the ballots.
Would it not make more sense to have an independent committee to decide on which ballots to admit or not?

[Eric J in MN]

69. It was a bizarre 3-2 decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

There will probably be lawsuits after certification to get more "Improperly Rejected Absentee Ballots" counted.

[MadMaddie]

71. One way to resolve this bullshit is to actually call in the voters

whose ballots are in question and have them verbally acknowledge who they voted for and they would need to sign a legal document saying who they voted for.

See that wasn't so hard. During the time they spent trying to figure out the ballots they could have talked to the individuals and settled it.

[marshall]

72. My guess is most people whose ballots were rejected would be dumbfounded

Not just those elite "election judges". Us common folk expect our ballots to be counted too.

[No Elephants]

73. A woman who wanted to vote for Coleman messed up her absentee ballot, even though she is

an election judge. And Coleman challenged it, even though she was trying to vote for him.

As long as the vote does not get counted, I'm not really seeing a problem for Democrats here. Oh sure, maybe for future elections, the law and the directions should be revamped. Meanwhile...

Go, Al!

[aquart]

74. Thought she had the right to vote, huh?

[MADem]

76. I am entirely UNSURPRISED that this judge is a Republican. Note the TONE of her comments.

The sense of ENTITLEMENT, the sense that she belongs to a caste of people who are SUPERIOR to the "ordinary" voter. It's as though she's not just a Party member, she's a Politburo member, and deserves better treatment than the "unwashed masses." She feels as though she somehow deserves to be first in line.

Her words: "I'm an election judge," said Graham, of Duluth. "I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn't be counted."

In my world, today, snow shovelers are "more important" than election judges. I say count the ballots of the snow shovellers FIRST!

[Downtown Hound]

80. So true

And the fact that she's stupid enough to vote for a Republican, and then, surprise! She finds herself on the ass end of their tricks. Poetic justice.