New numbers on absentee ballots from Duluth, MN show potential for significant Franken gains

[Bjorn Against]

With all the good news coming out for Franken today there is one detail that initially slipped under the radar...

Franken also received unexpected good news when Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann dropped a mini-bombshell, telling the board that in overwhelmingly Democratic Duluth — which has not officially tallied rejected absentees — about 40 percent of that city's 319 rejected absentee ballots were mistakenly rejected. Gelbmann said the city rejected the votes because either the voter or the witness did not date their signatures. He said he couldn't find any state law to support such a rejection.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_11205362

In addition to Duluth it appears that Hennepin County which is the most Democratic county in the state also has hundreds of improperly rejected absentees. Statewide Franken won the absentees which were counted by a fairly good margin, and it is looking like absentee votes were being rejected at a disproportionate rate in the heavily Democratic cities of Duluth and Minneapolis. The third big Democratic stronghold in the state is St. Paul which is in Ramsey County, because their election supervisor does not seem to like transparancy they have so far refused to even look at their improperly rejected absentee ballots.

It is quite an embarrassment that Minnesota election officials have all these absentee ballots which were not rejected for any legal reason, and it is even more embarrassing that our Senator who is currently under investigation by the FBI is claiming we should set a legal precedent which would value a clerical error over a person's right to have their vote counted.

Some people may remember that I had a post on here a few days ago in which I stated that Franken was almost certain to win. While I am still confident in Franken's chances, he is not going to win by the margin that I thought he would. As I looked at more ballots it turned out the sample of challenged ballots I initially looked at was not as representative as I thought, and it was clear that Coleman had more votes than I had initially thought. That being said however I am still confident that Franken will show a net gain from the challenged ballots, and the absentees could very easily put him over the top if they are counted.

Despite the good news that has come out today however, we neeed to be clear on something. The Coleman campaign has no problem with disenfranchising voters, and they will do everything they can to stop these votes from being counted. The canvassing board's decision on the absentee ballots today was only a recommendation, it was not legally binding and there is likely to be some resistance from places like Ramsey County where their election supervisor has resisted any efforts at transparancy.

This battle is about our democracy, if we allow a precedent to be set which says that ballots can be rejected for no legal reason then that will not only effect the results of this election it will effect the results of future elections as well. If an election judge knew that they could reject ballots without a legal reason then the likelihood that they would abuse that power is extremely high, and election fraud would become a serious problem in Minnesota. We can not set a precedent which allows for voters to be disenfranchised based on clerical errors, as if we do I can virtually guarantee we will be seeing a big rise in "clerical errors". Every vote needs to be counted, if we do not live by that principle then we do not have a true democracy.

[Pab Sungenis]

1. That should give Franken a net gain of, what, 60 votes? Maybe 70?

Of course, that could be offset by similar situations in Coleman counties.

[Bjorn Against]

5. Probably something like that...

Coleman will certainly get some new votes as well, but to have an error rate of 40% on the rejected absentees is extremely bad and it is unlikely any other county will find an error rate that large. Because absentee ballots favored Franken to begin with it is unlikely that Coleman will make up a 60 or 70 vote difference elsewhere.

[Bjorn Against]

6. dupe

[riqster]

2. A VERY good point:

"We can not set a precedent which allows for voters to be disenfranchised based on clerical errors, as if we do I can virtually guarantee we will be seeing a big rise in "clerical errors"."

Indeed. Every loophole that is provided, the Reeps will exploit.

[Bjorn Against]

8. That is the part that scares me the most...

While I am happy about the canvassing boards decision today I wish it was legally binding, if we lose when this goes to court the legal precedent the case would set would have very serious consequences. I think at this point most people are only looking at this issue as it relates to Franken vs. Coleman, but forgetting that the legal precedent set by cases like this often have a long term impact. The thought that clerical errors could become an excuse for disenfranchising voters is scary, if this argument is upheld then election judges could basically disenfranchise any absentee voter they wanted to for any reason. The argument the Coleman campaign is making is extremely undemocratic, and if they succeed in court then the consequences could be felt for generations to come.

[riqster]

9. Precisely! That's why everyone needs to support Franken now

...like him or not, live in MN or not. He is fighting a fight for all of us.

[ThomWV]

3. Every bit of good news on this front is appreciated.

[amdezurik]

4. I kind of expect that kind of thing in Sterns county

havong lived in St. Cloud for HS and some college, but after the way the pigs behaved during the GOP chrade of a convention and some other things lately it really is looking like an awful lot of MN has gone bug-eyed crazy...

[Torgo Johnson]

7. I checked out Intrade.

Coleman was trading in the mid 60's until right before noon today when his price suddenly dropped below 50 and has been struggling to stay above it since.