Minn. Supreme Court intervenes in recount case

[jonks]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: jonks
one sec

About your sig...

If Rush, Kristol and O'Rielly don't matter anymore due to Obama's election that would imply that Olbermann hasn't mattered for the last 8 years.

I am not a fan of Olbermann, I just liked this clip, but his point was that if those three in their combined efforts to reach the various demographics they normally appeal to in conjunction with Hannity and Co were all unable to scare america enough to vote the way they wanted when handed on a platter a young inexperienced black guy with a muslim sounding name, then the amount of influence they actually have is nothing to worry about.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
What concerns me here in mn is how votes are being found all over.

How did they get "lost" in the first place?

Welcome to politics. I called this before it even happened.

Nice

I think when we put our votes in the be scanned instantly into a DB and that a DB record is printed onto a piece of paper with a lookup number.

Then you can go online and look at your ballot.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234
blah blah blah

1. The only way Gore wins in Florida is if you recount overvotes, and no one ever talked about counting overvotes.

2. I just finished reading over the actually text of the Supreme Court ruling and have a clear understanding of the issues.
a. Gore wanted a recount of only certain counties a clear violation of the equal protection clause. This was the 7-2 ruling.
b. Florida law required that all recounts be complete by Dec 12 and since they ruled on Dec 12 they ruled that there was no time left for a recount unless you ignored that law. That was the 5-4 ruling.

3. Gore only wins the media recount if you include overvotes. If they only recount the undervotes by hand then Bush wins. Also the media recount clearly stated that the results varied based on what standard you use. Gore only wins if you use the most lenient of standards. There is no way to determine what standard would have been used if a state wide recount had been ordered by the Supreme Court.

4. The idea that the office was stolen is a joke. Bush won the legal recount. If the Supreme Court had sat on its ass and done nothing Bush still would have won. If Al Gore had been allowed to do any type of recount that he had asked for Bush would have won.

5. Gore SHOULD have won the election, but he didn't because of errors caused completely by Democrats. Democrats designed the butterfly ballots that caused so many problems in Palm Beach. It was Gore and his legal team that made faulty decisions when fighting this battle in court.

I was planning to respond to you, but when you are so disrespectful as to put in a 'quote' o fmy test and edit it to 'blah blah blah' for no reason, you don't deserve any time spent.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: alchemize
You can set your clock by moonbeam and election threads

What an utterly pointless post. Moonbeam posts (correctly) about the election and you post this nonsense in response with some vague insinuation of criticism of ridicule or something.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Honestly I'm not sure Bush should have lost in 2000...

What are you unclear on? Let's review a few of the facts.

- Jeb Bush and George Bush campaign co-chair/sec of state ran a scheme using the 'felon list' to illegally remove tens of thousand of highly disproportionately black valid voters.

- The voters' intent was thwarted by 'accidents', from the butterfly ballot steering thousand of Gore votes to Buchanan, to black districts having old technology that did not tell voters when their votes were invalid and let them correct them, but instead accepted the ballots and they were later tossed out, in contrast to the white districts, who had the machines let voters correct their errors, resulting in far fewer lost votes. The resulting huge differences in invalid votes led to a lot of wrong comments about 'those incompetent black voters'.

- The media-sponsored recount clearly showed that had all the votes been counted where the voters' intent was clear, Gore won. By every such set of rules.

The media was shy about saying this after 9/11, and they then added some rule sets under which Bush would have won the recount, but these rules had nothing to do with the 'count every voter where the intent is clear' standard in state law. They were merely cover for being able ot hedge the statements on Gore haivng won with an 'under some rules' qualifier. Even with that, many media outlets went even further and headlined the stories that 'Bush wins recount', only noting in the small print how Gore won the relevant counts.

Overvotes are the clearest invalidated votes for determining voter intent - typically voters who would circle the candidate's name as well as make the vote for them. There's no doubt who the voter intended to vote for, and the Florida standard for counting the vote is if that intent can be determined. ProfJohn tries to smear the overvotes with nothing more than a snide tone in referring to them, showing an illogic and disrespect for democracy and the law, saying Gore 'only' wins when they're counted, as if that's bizarre and unfair.

There's more, but you should not have any doubt, Rainsford, that in terms of the voter's intent and/or if the theft of votes had not occured, Gore won the election. Facts are clear.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
What concerns me here in mn is how votes are being found all over.

How did they get "lost" in the first place?

Welcome to politics. I called this before it even happened.

You saying that all elections are filled with 'stolen votes'? If not, what does generalizing this election's issues to all elections with 'Welcome to politics' mean?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: jonks
one sec

About your sig...

If Rush, Kristol and O'Rielly don't matter anymore due to Obama's election that would imply that Olbermann hasn't mattered for the last 8 years.

No, but it proves that you and all of your lies, diversions and distractions haven't. :laugh:

Some people can't tell the difference between truthtellers attacking a corrupt leader, and liars attacking an honest leader.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Facts are clear when you're a partisan hack like me.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Facts are not clear when you're a partisan hack like me.

[/quote]

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: alchemize
You can set your clock by moonbeam and election threads

What an utterly pointless post. Moonbeam posts (correctly) about the election and you post this nonsense in response with some vague insinuation of criticism of ridicule or something.

Oh be still my beating heart! :brokenheart: Craig234 didn't like my post!

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: mugs
How could you possibly find fault in counting votes that were rejected for improper reasons?

Don't confuse America haters with facts.

What an ironic thing for you to say.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: mugs

How could you possibly find fault in counting votes that were rejected for improper reasons?

How could anyone possibly find fault in allowing an appropriate court to determine whether the reasons for rejecting those votes were proper?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: alchemize

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: alchemize
You can set your clock by moonbeam and election threads

What an utterly pointless post. Moonbeam posts (correctly) about the election and you post this nonsense in response with some vague insinuation of criticism of ridicule or something.

Oh be still my beating heart! :brokenheart: Craig234 didn't like my post!

:laugh: yeah. Just wait until you get "the PM" from him...

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: Lemon law
While Cad has a small point in stating, "Actually the first thing should be that all should be counted using the standard set before the ballots were cast, thus not letting the courts or politics sway how things are done during recounts." Sadly, right now, its a been there and done that with the Cad point, what is now lacking is any clear guidelines of how to deal with disputed ballots on both sides that totally dwarfs the current margin of victory. As it is, Franken may well have the current recount lead while the Minnesota canvassing board is unwilling to take a position. So it more or less defaults to the Minnesota supreme court to set Stae wide standards in what amounts to an unprecedented problem.

Failing a Minnesota solution, I doubt the United States Supreme Court will touch the problem, which might kick the election to the US Senate to decide, and if that happens, Coleman is likely to be toast.

Make up your mind Cad.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

You're getting confused. The ballots that were tossed on election night were tossed by an electronic counting system that couldn't judge "voter intent". The Minnesota law makes clear that manual recounts should evaluate rejected ballots on the basis of "voter intent."

Thus, a ballot rejected electronically because the oval wasn't completely filled in will be accepted as a valid vote in a manual recount if the voter circled the oval, underlined the oval, or incompletely filled in the oval. As long as the voter intent is clear, the vote will be counted. For these marginal ballots, an electronic count can't determine voter intent, but human minds can. That's all part of the "rules established when the ballots were cast." So you should be very happy with Minnesota's approach.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: yuppiejr

Originally posted by: chess9

Originally posted by: winnar111
http://www.kxmb.com/News/309313.asp

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Minnesota Supreme Court is getting involved in the state's unsettled U.S. Senate race.

The court said Monday it will weigh whether to stop the sorting and counting of wrongly rejected absentee ballots until clear instructions are handed down.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman petitioned the court to step in after the state board overseeing the recount recommended those ballots be considered last week. Coleman maintains there aren't clear guidelines for the recommendation and could lead to disarray among the 87 counties.

Democrat Al Franken made a big push to include absentee ballots in the recount that were improperly set aside. Minnesota has four legal reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot, but some of the decisions on or before Election Day fell outside those reasons.

The Supreme Court asked the parties to submit arguments in writing by Tuesday in advance of a hearing the next day.



Another losing Democrat tries to throw a fuss by counting and recounting votes until they 'find' enough to win. Sadly these people don't go away.

Democrats are trying to back away from a special election in IL because they might lose it, citing 'cost', but apparently are willing to waste lots of money in MN.

Another losing Republican begs yet another court to help him do what he couldn't do-win an election.

-Robert

After the last recount Coleman is STILL ahead... So really, the only person who seems to be dragging this out until enough votes can be "found" is Al Franken. Luckily he's got a friend in Mark Richie (who is also on the canvasing board) so damnit they will keep counting until enough votes can be found to get their boy elected!

You're wrong. There are 6500 disputed ballots not yet included in the final tally, so the "last recount" isn't completed yet. By the rules of the recount, if the election panel concluded that a ballot was cast for Franken, but Coleman didn't agree, then that ballot was set aside and not yet counted. So the final tally won't be complete until all the disputed ballots are adjudicated.

Note that if Franken had disputed every single vote for Coleman, Coleman's current tally would be ZERO. Would you say the recount was complete in that scenario?

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: shira
You're getting confused. The ballots that were tossed on election night were tossed by an electronic counting system that couldn't judge "vote intent". The Minnesota law makes clear that manual recounts should evaluate rejected ballots on the basis of "voter intent."

Thus, a ballot rejected electronically because the oval wasn't completely filled in will be accepted as a valid vote in a manual recount if the voter circled the oval, underlined the oval, or incompletely filled in the oval. As long as the voter intent is clear, the vote will be counted. For these marginal ballots, an electronic count can't determine voter intent, but human can. That's all part of the "rules established when the ballots were cast." So you should be very happy with Minnesota's approach.

/thread

 

[Jhhnn]

CSG isn't confused, at all, shira. He's using doublespeak.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast.

Yeh, OK, but that's not what happened. Ballots were rejected for reasons not complying with the rules and the 4 reasons for ballot rejection.

Now that the rules have been broken, Minnesotans should now use the broken results from the broken rules on which to base their recount, according to CSG-

At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently.

This approach is apparently seen as favoring Coleman, so of course that's what repubs want, regardless of the fairness of it all. First break the rules, then claim that the results of that breach are the ones to live by...

Pretty nifty, ehh?

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

That's the thing, the process you describe is the rules. Minnesota is somewhat unique in that a recount is mandatory when the margin of error is this close, and the recount must be by hand, specifically for the reason that some ballots may have been counted or rejected improperly. This applies to all ballots, absentee included. The law is pretty damn clear.

Think of it this way: if some random mid-level muckety-muck had, prior to election night, taken a stack of absentee ballots, pulled all the ones marked for Coleman out and said "these are all invalid because they used pink pen" regardless of whether or not they did, would you still be saying those ballots shouldn't be counted?

 

[Lemon law]

There are only two relevant facts to deal with in this thread.

1. The Minnesota supreme court has intervened.

2. Any judgments of fair or unfair should be reserved until after the Minnesota supreme court acts, the court has not yet acted, so any of those P&N judgments are premature.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why does Norm Coleman not want legitimate votes to be counted?

 

[Jhhnn]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Why does Norm Coleman not want legitimate votes to be counted?

Because, to paraphrase Vince Lombardi-

Winning isn't the most important thing- it's the *only* thing.

That matters, anyway.

Capische?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
CSG isn't confused, at all, shira. He's using doublespeak.

My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast.

Yeh, OK, but that's not what happened. Ballots were rejected for reasons not complying with the rules and the 4 reasons for ballot rejection.

Now that the rules have been broken, Minnesotans should now use the broken results from the broken rules on which to base their recount, according to CSG-

At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently.

This approach is apparently seen as favoring Coleman, so of course that's what repubs want, regardless of the fairness of it all. First break the rules, then claim that the results of that breach are the ones to live by...

Pretty nifty, ehh?

:roll: except the point of using existing rules is that there can't be political interference afterwards and/or some judge(who likely has a bias either way) can't affect the outcome.

Come on people, it's not that F'n hard for these states to have these proceedures figured out before hand so there aren't endless "options" for the loser to try to exploit in their attempts to change the outcome. If the vote is close and they want a recount - fine -but have uniform rules and proceedures in place so there isn't a question about what to do. Sheesh.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: yukichigai

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
My mind is made up - follow the rules as established when the ballots were cast. If a ballot is tossed it should not be suddenly counted during a recount as a recount should be a recount of the ballots allowed on election night. So while you likely can not think of every situation that might come up, there should be a way set up in the rules to deal with tossed ballots. At the current time there is NOTHING that suggests they should be allowed in the recount - thus they shouldn't be allowed. Yes yes, if they were "good" ballots they should have been counted in the first place but there is no proceedure for allowing them back in currently. Also, unlike Perknose and some others - I don't happen to think everything is as clean as they'd like to suggest. "finding" ballots and then the thing about not using the recount numbers and instead using election night's numbers? Uh hello? This is a recount - the recount numbers are what is supposed to be counted. You can't pick and choose which result sets you want to use - it's F'n ridiculous.

That's the thing, the process you describe is the rules. Minnesota is somewhat unique in that a recount is mandatory when the margin of error is this close, and the recount must be by hand, specifically for the reason that some ballots may have been counted or rejected improperly. This applies to all ballots, absentee included. The law is pretty damn clear.

Think of it this way: if some random mid-level muckety-muck had, prior to election night, taken a stack of absentee ballots, pulled all the ones marked for Coleman out and said "these are all invalid because they used pink pen" regardless of whether or not they did, would you still be saying those ballots shouldn't be counted?

Right so if it "must" be by hand - why is one precinct using to election night results instead of the recount results? That's right- it's because of political positioning.