Our friend Robert is a political poll junkie. We’ve been fortunate to have him here on the site for the last two presidential elections, explaining exit poll data, making predictions, and occasionally ranting. Robert, as some of you know, also believes that this polling data quite often points toward election tampering on the part of Republicans. Following, with his permission, are a few notes he’s sent to me in the wake of Tuesday’s election.
Minnesota:
Strangely, even though their exit polls showed Franken had won the election in Minnesota by several points, the AP declared Coleman the winner. There’s absolutely no good way to make sense of that. Even the highly suspect official numbers were so close there shouldn’t have been any call. It appears someone at AP got an order to provide the same kind of fake media cover FOX News provided in Florida in 2000.Coleman has been acting strangely since Tuesday night. I get the impression he’s worried there will be too much attention on the details of what went on there on Election Day. Coleman staffers had unusual involvement with the “guarding”, transport and tabulation of ballots in that election. There absolutely needs to be an investigation!
Exit polls showed Franken winning by 12 points. And these are the same exit polls that predicted other races very accurately. The Minnesota GOP is running a PR blitz that is clearly meant for the purpose of blocking media and public interest in details. They’re scared.
It appears that money which was distributed under the cover of being for added security measures during the Republican National Convention actually went to pay off individuals helping in the fixing of the general election for Coleman, and possibly others, such as Bachman.
Georgia:
There is some seriously fucked up shit in the numbers coming out of Georgia now too. They fixed it big. They appear to still be in the process of back-engineering the numbers in order to try to make them match the bullshit cover story. I think Obama was a lot closer to winning Georgia than the official results suggest, and that criminal Chambliss was fucking beat! According to official results Obama did no better than Clinton did in 1996. That’s bullshit! There was huge African-American turnout in heavily populated counties like Fulton. Republican turnout was not impressive. Now there will be a runoff on December 2nd. There’s still a chance to have a little reprise of this amazing Obama win. I’d like to go down there and work on that campaign, I just fucking might! I’d love to be a part of ramming the fucking numbers down the throats of those backwater GOP criminals.Truthout has a lot of good information about it.
It’s my understanding that WSB-TV in Atlanta has been reporting about irregularities in Fulton County. I’ve been looking for the details.
Florida:
I also love Florida again now. They managed to simply overwhelm all the voted purges and suppression with sheer fucking numbers! It’s awesome. I think the real margin of victory in Florida approached a million, but official results put it at 195,000. Those fuckers down there couldn’t hold ’em back. Obama won New York State by almost two-fucking-million! He won California by two and a half million!Alaska:
Alaska is a serious election fixing situation too it seems. They’re doing it the old fashioned way out there though. It appears that tens of thousands of ballots just disappeared into thin air. Nobody can explain what now looks like amazingly low turnout. They’re testing all kinds of bullshit theories about Democrats staying home for one fucking reason or another. Yeah, like there is something else to do in Alaska on election day.
53 Comments
Yeah, now I feel the need to point out that these comments of mine that you quote here are all taken from casual e-mails I sent to you…not that I mind you sharing my comments here. But of course I probably should have written you a more eloquent summery of all this stuff that would have made a better presentation for your post.
I know a lot of people have a sort of involuntary reaction to such suggestions, and they immediately tune them out. Even the sharp statisticians seem to go into a frantic search for any other explanation they can come up with before, God forbid, considering the possibility that an election has been tampered with. Most simply refuse to ever even consider it. Of course all this extraordinary apprehension of their’s evaporates into thin air when the election being discussed happens to be outside of the US borders.
For anyone out there who may have the impulse to dismiss my assertions, using as the basis for this dismissal my obvious ideological slant against Republicans, I want to also add that I have seen some instances where I believe Democrats have benefited from election rigging. The Virginia US Senate race in 2006 is an example.
The important thing, in my opinion, is that people get past this initial visceral reaction to suggestions that our election process here in the US can, and has, been rigged at times. The evidence is there, and in huge volumes in some instances.
Regardless, I’ll be following developments in the Georgia, Minnesota and Alaska Senate races, and I’ll be annoying all of you with the details I find interesting.
It’s interesting to note that in the Minnesota race, Norm Colman keeps publicly suggesting challenger Al Franken “drop” his request for a recount. What’s interesting about that is that the recount isn’t happening because of Franken’s request. It is simply the law that any election which turns out that close automatically goes to a recount.
I think Norm Coleman is shit out of luck. This isn’t Florida in 2000 where a loaded supreme court will step in to stop the recount. I predict the recount reveals Franken to be the actual winner in that election.
In my defense, I did ask you, Robert, if I could share the contents of those emails and you agreed.
In retrospect, however, I can see how you may have thought that I would edit them, removing the “fucks” and the like, making them seem less partisan and more scientific in nature. If that’s the case, I apologize. If you would like to edit them, just send me new text and I’ll swap them out.
And thanks again for keeping us all informed as to the controversy.
Before the recount in Minnesota even begins, Coleman’s lead drops to 236 votes, or .011 percentage points:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/34024274.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsr
More on the inconsistency in Alaska:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/11/06/crunching-the-numbers-in-alaska/
I didn’t mean to leave that out Mark. Yes, you asked me, and honestly I don’t mind anyway. These fuckers that read this blog already know all too well my poor writing, foul language, and obnoxious behavior.
Thanks to you too Meta, for the update. I am predicting Franken is eventually declared the winner, because the votes were there. They just need to pry them out.
I doubt the Democrats will expose the attempted rigging of these elections though. They’ll use whatever they can find out as leverage against the Republicans on other matters. If the Minnesota GOP absolutely refuses to concede, the Dems will expose aspects of what they did there. That should be enough to make ’em shut up and turn over the keys.
Here’s how the GOP is trying to portray events:
“Thanks to your critical support our Senate firewall held up against a tidal wave of liberal attack ads and the Obama Get-Out-The-Vote machine.
But the fight goes on … as three Senate races have yet to be decided:
* Georgia’s Senate race is headed for a December 2nd runoff.
* Minnesota’s Senate race (the race angry, liberal Al Franken is trying to win) is headed for a costly recount. Norm Coleman is leading, but Franken’s lawyers are already crying foul.
* Votes are still being counted in Alaska.
The liberals are mobilizing an army of lawyers in Minnesota and Alaska to try to steal these seats they could not win outright on Election Day. And MoveOn.org is sure to add to the $217,741 they raised to help elect a Barack Obama rubberstamp.
We need your help to save Republican Senate seats in Minnesota, Alaska and to pay for a costly runoff election in Georgia.
Please donate $25 today to stop the liberals from gaining an unstoppable, filibuster-proof majority for Barack Obama
Thanks for your support,
Senator John Ensign
Chairman,
National Republican Senatorial Committee
P.S. Your donation of $25 today will make ensure liberals don’t steal this election”
So “firewall” is the word Republicans are using to refer to their election rigging. It’s sort of akin to their “He’s not like us” code for their bigotry against Obama. It must be weird to have to go through life speaking publicly in code.
Cool, thanks Robert, interesting (fucking) stuff…
In Grand Rapids, two GOP challengers were thrown out for ‘disruptive behavior’ after they tried to challenge a wife reading the ballot to her illiterate husband. Of course, considering that ‘voter fraud’ is just a myth created by the GOP, their agenda at the precinct was only to intimidate.
Maybe it’s OK to swear when talking about the fucking scoundrels who try to steal elections.
Yes, Michael Schils, the GOP challengers need to be watched. They are there to do a lot more than legally challenge anything. There need to be observers outside the polls too, because the GOP has been placing people outside the polls who try to confuse and intimidate voters who they feel match the profile of Democratic voters. I saw a ton of that in 2004. It looks like the Granholm administration and the Obama campaign put the kabosh on most of those fuckers this year here in Michigan.
By the way, it’s looking more and more like the truth in the GOP’s attempted rigging (aka firewall) of the Alaska Senate race is slowly trickling out. But of course, once the Dems have found enough uncounted ballots to win, they won’t bother to expose the full magnitude of the rigging. (see the link)
Stevens is now down by over 800 in Alaska!
Ted Stevens officially loses Alaska:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803227.html?
Yes, the GOP’s attempt to steal the Senate race in Alaska failed. But they are still working on Minnesota, Florida2000 style.
Here’s John Kerry’s take:
“Picture this: a razor close election, and the Republican holds a tiny lead after the first count of millions of ballots. And, once again, he goes to court – repeatedly – to try to shut down the recount.
Not Bush v. Gore in Florida – this is Franken vs. Coleman in Minnesota. A choice between one side that wants every vote counted and the side that just wants Coleman votes counted.
Please donate to Al Franken’s recount fund and help make sure all the votes are counted.
So far, unlike Florida in 2000, Norm Coleman’s efforts are not working. We just found out last evening that Coleman’s latest attempt to block and delay met the same fate as the others: defeat in the courts.
But make no mistake, they can still twist the process. As the judge said yesterday, “With each passing hour, the Franken campaign is irreparably harmed in its efforts to ensure that each valid vote is properly counted.”
Let’s make sure Al Franken has the resources he needs to continue to keep up the fight to make sure each and every valid vote is counted. He needs our help right now.
Please donate to Al Franken’s recount fund and help make sure all the votes are counted.
Norm Coleman first won his seat after the tragic death of Paul Wellstone, and Al, a good friend of Paul’s, is fighting to get that seat back in progressive hands. The stakes are high; we can’t let them try to steal this seat.”
In the re-examination of the discarded ballots in the Minnesota race they are finding that many WERE marked for Franken and not counted because they were marked so lightly.
So far, because these ballots are now being re-examined, Coleman’s “lead” has dwindled to 169 votes. The Coleman campaign is now trying to keep challenged ballots from being examined by the canvassing board.
The Star-Tribune is keeping a running update on the recount and re-examination of previously discarded ballots. See the link above.
I’m predicting Franken has it in the end, due mostly to the indications given off by the Colemen campaign all along of being unusually resistant to too much scrutiny. They’ve obviously been engaging in deliberate actions to fix the election by making sure ballots were rejected in heavily Democratic areas.
Coleman’s supposed lead is down to 136 this morning.
Colemans supposed lead is down to 136 this morning.
The Coleman campaign is actually challenging some ballots on nothing but the simple fact that the voter split their ticket. See the link.
Those who represent what is ultimately the losing side in any argument can often be indentified early on by the absurdity of their attempted claims. It is an indication that even the they themselves are aware of the fact that they have the weaker position. This is how I would characterize the approach and behavior of the GOP in Minnesota on this senate election and recount.
However, the Democrats in their infinite softness are just relying on the re-examination of enough rejected ballots to show they actually won. I’m not sure this is going to be the case. The Franken campaign seems somewhat optimistic though. They claim they are within double digits of overtaking Coleman. The Star-Tribune is curently reporting the number as 133.
Win or lose for Franken, I think experts in forensic accounting should take a look at all the information regarding the Minnesota election. I think they would potentially find evidence that a good number of ballots disappeared before being included in any tallying.
Fivethirtyeight.com is now predicting Franken will win the recount by 27 votes.
Eyewitness report : Mower County Election Official “publicly humiliating” Franken ballot challenger. Live blog http://www.theuptake.org
The election official in question has tenitively been identified as Doug Groh, the County Auditor-Treasurer.
Press release from the Franken campaign:
Today, the Franken campaign sent a letter to the Secretary of State asking him to instruct local elections officials to redouble their efforts to find missing ballots that have been reported across the state. Press reports indicate that ballots are missing in Saint Paul, Duluth, Coon Rapids, Hermantown, Crystal, Hopkins, Berlin, Apple Valley, and Chisago, among other places.
It’ll be incredible if he pulls it off… If he does, Obama better get down there to Georgia and start stumping. If we can win that one, it’ll give us 60, right?
Based on the tactics the Coleman campaign is employing, I believe Franken most likely has the votes amongst the 3,000 challenged (and yet to be included in the totals) ballots.
As of this morning, best estimates are that the Franken campaign is down by 84 votes at this point in the re-count. The Secretary of State and the press are reporting totals which do not include the 3,000 ballots on hold for challenging.
I went back and found the comments I made on this site prior to the election predicting a fix in Minnesota. You can see for yourself by clicking the link to the old thread above.
Here’s what I said and when:
9/12/08: “However, I’m a little concerned about them being able to pull their FL-style funny business in MN this year. We might see another shitty surprise up there similar to what we saw in OH in 2004.”
9/16/08: “If things are close this year, the favorites to fix are Florida again, Missouri again, Minnesota and Nevada again.”
Granted, I assumed that the fix in Minnesota was going to be on the presidential numbers there, but it turned out to be a fix of the senate race. Had my paranoia not been so fixated on the presidential election I may have been doing a Jean Dixon thing for the National Enquirer by now.
So Saxby Chambliss won his re-election in the senate run-off in Georgia yesterday. Oh well, it’s probably best that the Democrats won’t be getting that filibuster proof majority. They’d almost certainly hang themselves with that much rope anyway.
There isn’t as much reason for the GOP to hold onto their attempted fix of the Minnesota race now. I think it is even more likely now that uncounted ballots will continue to be found showing Franken was the actual winner.
Headline from The Uptake blog:
“Franken campaign claims 22 vote lead
Plans to withdraw 600+ challenges”
Shortly after it became clear that 171 previously uncounted ballots put Franken in the lead by 22 votes, something strange happened in Minneapolis and 133 ballots suddenly went missing. If the missing ballots are not found, it will cost Franken 36 votes. They are now trying to engineer an excuse as to why those ballots never existed.
WOW this is getting fun! The Franken campaign lawyers are now asking that one particular polling location be designated as a crime scene, so that it can be searched for the missing ballots.
“The precinct with the missing ballots is also the college precinct where voters were denied an opportuinity to vote. College Republican sabotage should be looked into.” – The MN Progressive Project
The attempt to characterize the conveniently missing 133 ballots as having never existed, has failed, and that attempt is now itself being characterized as an honest mistake. It’s funny how conclusive everyone is about things which they have no conclusive evidence, all the time trying to give the impression (and convincing themselves it seems) that they are somehow being fair minded. I argue that this is the very mentality that enables so much corruption and organized criminal activity in our culture. See if you can guess who is stuck with the bill and any other consequences.
The Minnesota state canvassing board is going through the challenged ballots now. You can watch it live at theuptake.com
It’s awesome! Like watching a basketball game.
We are at the first break in the action. The Board is ruling on ballots that the Franken campaign challenged, one at a time.
So far Franken has picked up 4 votes. 17 of the Franken challenges were rejected.
I’m going to pop some popcorn, dump a bag of pretzels in a bowl, and bring a six pack in to watch the rest of this. It’s fucking awesome!
Check out the live blogging and coverage at theuptake.com!
MSNBC is now reporting that Al Franken is only 2 votes behind as they recount the ballots in Minnesota. TWO VOTES!!!
Of the challenged ballots examined by the state canvassing board so far, Franken has been awarded 273 votes, while Coleman has been awarded 249.
You can watch all this live, continuing at 10am EST tomorrow on theuptake.com website.
The “recount” which I believe is more accurately described as a “full accounting” of the vote in the Minnesota US Senate election is now showing Franken winning by 50 votes. There are still absentee ballots, numbering in the four figure range, which were rejected and not included in the original count. The lawyers representing the respective campaigns are now fighting over which ones of these should be examined. It’s strange that the Minnesota Supreme Court didn’t just order them all to be examined by the board to see if they were improperly thrown out.
It looks to me like the Coleman team just wants to do whatever it takes to make it look like the final result is tainted. The Franken folks seem like they might just be a little confused as to what to do about that.
The Minnesota Canvassing Board is scheduled to certify Al Franken’s victory at 3:30pm EST today. They are going to certify the recounted results showing Franken with a 225 vote win over Coleman.
Dim-witted neo-cons are now suddenly interested in conspiracy theories concerning the race and are screaming about statistical anomalies in the ratios of recovered votes, seeing far too many have gone to Franken (nearly 1,000). What’s funny about that is that they are right! They are just too dumb to realize the anomalies have more than one explanation…and it’s not the stupid one.
The Coleman campaign has the right to contest the results once certified, but I predict they will not do that. Doing so would bring a more full investigation of the election day details, and it would soon be apparent that several thousand votes (many more than have already been recovered in the recount) were deliberately thrown out before and during the original count.
Dip-shits on the Republican side will be whining about how Coleman gave up without a fight, just like all those left-wing jackasses have been doing regarding Kerry and Gore.
Franken declaring victory live now on CNN.
I heard a local conservative talk show host on the way home from work talking about how it was imperative that we have a do-over election in Minnesota. He hadn’t said that once, as far as I know, before today. Seems not to have crossed his mind while Coleman was in the lead.
Rupert Murdock’s Wall Street Journal has now jumped into the disinformation campaign regarding the Minnesota election. They printed an editorial piece which was essentially nothing but a series of misrepresentations and flat out lies. I guess they have to do something now that nobody has any reason to read that rag anymore.
The Coleman campaign is saying they’ll be contesting the results of the election. After calling the claim that there might be a hundred or so double-counted ballots “unfounded and frivolous,” they went on to make exactly that claim themselves. So essentially, the Coleman campaign called their own claims “unfounded and frivolous.”
The hypocrisy of neo-cons is mind-numbing. They contradict themselves in almost every statement they make now. It’s like living with Alice in fucking wonderland with these lunatics!
Meanwhile, the Coleman campaign is going to have to be careful what they ask for. Forensic statistical analysis of election night tabulations suggest Franken actually beat Coleman by more than 20,000 votes.
Minnesota in 2008 looked like a miniature version of what I saw in Ohio four years ago.
Time-slice analysis of internet reporting of vote tabulation on election night shows sever points at which Franken’s totals actually WENT DOWN!
CNN must have been using the original county level tabulations in their reported totals. At 4am on November 5th they showed Franken with almost 10,000 votes more than the Minnesota Secretary of State website showed, even though Coleman’s numbers were about the same on both sites.
During the Republican National Convention, money was being passed around like candy to local officials. Now we know what it was for. Similar patterns played out in Ohio four years back.
Don’t be too sure the Democrats will be investigating any of this. Apparently they’re perfectly happy just being back in power where they can waste more taxpayer money kidding themselves they’re safely entrenched.
Today at 3:30 EST, the Minnesota Supreme Court holds a hearing on Senator Franken’s motion to dismiss sore-loser Norm Coleman’s case contesting the election results.
I’m advising Coleman to file a lawsuit against the GOP operatives who failed to rig the election properly. Though they re-routed or destroyed thousands of ballots before county level tabulation, the dumb fuckers left the results too close and too many “shaved” ballots lying around where the recount could find them. The GOP really needs to start hosting vote rigging seminars to properly train these criminals. I know there are a lot of Alaskans and Minnesotans who could learn from the Floridians and Georgians.
The National GOP should also sue to get their payoff cash back. When you accept bribes to rig an election and then you fail to successfully rig that election, you really should be required to return the bribe money.
The Coleman court contest of the Minnesota election results is being carried live on theuptake.com and has actually been pretty interesting at times.
Yesterday, Senator elect Franken’s lawyer ambushed one of the Coleman witnesses and it was quite entertaining viewing. I’m waiting for the uptake to get the video up. It’s worth watching.
Here’s the uptake’s summery of day one:
On Day 1, the Coleman legal team called up the political director of the Coleman for Senate campaign to establish chain of custody and foundation for the evidence they wanted submitted. In this case, they wanted to submit copies of absentee ballot envelopes the Coleman team argues were rejected improperly. This created great contreversy during cross examination by team Franken since many of the copies where not complete copies and missing relevant information. Later, Coleman’s team admitted to “overzealous redactors” as the cause. Coleman staff had made indelible notes on their copies (or, in other words, their evidence) which forced staffers later to cover up the internal notes. This situation forced the 3-judge panel to order the Coleman legal team to subpoena for the originals. Why Team Coleman did not issue subpoena for the originals after their motion to get them all in one fell swoop last week failed, is unclear.
So, to recap, my prediction that the Coleman campaign wouldn’t contest the election results was wrong. They did, and their baseless case was dismissed with prejudice.
Now that the Democrats have the seat, you can count on nobody being interested in finding out exactly what all went on in this Minnesota US Senate election. I strongly believe Franken’s actual margin of victory was in the tens of thousands. Few seem to care now. One article appears on OpEd.com which scratches the surface though.
Here’s a link: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Evidence-of-Republican-Fra-by-E-Nelson-081110-788.html
Here’s the text:
“Evidence of Republican Election Fraud in the Al Franken, Norm Coleman Senate Race?
by E. Nelson
http://www.opednews.com
When McCain said he was confident that he would win with a surge in the wee hours of November 5th during the final counting was there more truth in this statement than he was letting on? Two weeks ago, former Bush operative Karl Rove was confidently saying that John McCain could win ten battleground states to become President. Monday, the day before the election, Republican IT specialist Mike Connell, a Karl Rove protégé, was forced to testify in front of a Cleveland federal judge about a number of serious allegations with regards to hijacking vote results in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. Interestingly, Karl Rove changed his tune after the testimony and said on the eve of the election that Barack Obama would win in a landslide.
Could cyber-attacks and manipulation of transmitted vote tallies still have occurred in Minnesota – like what was described during Mike Connell’s testimony the day before – altering vote tallies in the Presidential and Senate elections as they were tabulated throughout the early morning hours of November 5th? Of course the Presidential election turned out to be a landslide and so attempts at fraud would have been overwhelmed by the lopsided victory for Barack Obama. However, the Senate race between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken was always expected to be very close. And these expectations did not disappoint. A neck and neck running vote tally occurred throughout the night with numerous lead changes and by Wednesday morning Norm Coleman had a slight lead of 762 votes in the uncertified results. This lead was however well within the guidelines of Minnesota election law dictating a recount by hand of the paper ballots if the final difference between candidates is within 0.5% of the total votes cast. In this case a 762 vote difference out of 2.9 million votes cast was a difference of only 0.01%, well within the designated 0.5% that would trigger an automatic recount.
Since Wednesday morning, a number of clerical errors and final vote tallies have created adjustments in the vote totals for both candidates and has made the race even tighter. Currently an unofficial tally of 221 votes separates Republican Norm Coleman and DFLer Al Franken. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said that adjustments in the days following the election are a normal part of the canvassing process. Counties must certify their results today, then send their results to the state by Friday. The state of Minnesota has until November 18th to certify the election. After this, the election recount will start and is expected to take a few weeks.
In the meantime the two competing campaigns have begun firing accusations at each other. One of the more serious accusations involves a Norm Coleman staffer that acted as a Somali translator on election day and at one point a GOP challenger and was accused of trying to illegally influence Somali voters at the polling place to cast votes for Norm Coleman. A very serious allegation if proven true.
Saturday lawyers representing Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign lost a legal battle trying to suppress the opening and counting of 32 absentee ballots. A Ramsey County judge denied Coleman’s request. Those ballots were opened and counted on Saturday afternoon and the results were expected to be delivered to the state on Monday.
An Associated Press story over the weekend discovered there were as many as 25,000 “undervotes” where voters picked a President but apparently did not vote in the Senate race and many of these “undervotes” occurred in heavily democratic voting precincts. While some of these “undervotes” are expected to occur, especially in a bitter mud-slinging contest such as the Franken – Coleman race, it is also possible that many other ballots might have been incorrectly marked or were misread by the optical scanning machines. These are ballots that are expected to be discovered during a manual hand recount. It has also been reported that the error rate for the optical scanning machines can be as high as 2 ballots missed for every 1000 counted. This could mean an additional 6000 uncounted ballots could be discovered and counted during the hand recount.
Because this race was so closely watched and blogged about, we were able to find time-stamped voting results for both Al Franken and Norm Coleman throughout the night. Dozens of internet sources were cross-checked and the timepoints of the results were compiled and graphed over the course of the evening. These snap-tallies are apparently submitted to various media outlets via the internet from the Secretary of State election center and are also displayed on the Minnesota Secretary of State Election website throughout the night. During this process a number of irregularities were discovered. At four different points in the night vote tallies for Al Franken decreased significantly even as tallies for Norm Coleman continued to increase from the previous timed tally. These four points are indicated on the graph below by the arrows. Decreases in Al Franken’s tally of 7903 votes occurred at 2:04 am, 105 votes at 3:42 am, 9529 votes at 3:58 am, and 3313 votes at 5:20 am. A total of 20,850 votes appear to have been subtracted from Al Franken’s total throughout the evening. At only one point that we could determine was there a decrease in Norm Coleman’s vote tally. This occurred at 2:09 am where 4252 votes were subtracted.
It is not immediately clear how or why a vote tally for only one candidate could decrease relative to an increase seen by the other candidate. Keep in mind that these were vote total results that were found recorded on various websites across the internet. Most of the numbers were verified in duplicate from different sources. The times indicated were normalized for Central Standard time and are as accurate as is possible for this type of data collection. Also keep in mind that the logging of vote tallies by media outlets and the Secretary of State website most likely included many more timepoints throughout the night than what we were able to find recorded by citizen bloggers. Nevertheless, the large subtraction of almost 10,000 votes from Al Franken’s tally did not go unnoticed on the blogosphere.
A number of interesting posts were also found during this data collection:
A blogger made the following post at 4:03 am:
“Both the MN sec. state and CNN have 98% in BUT:
CNN
Franken 1,188,975
Coleman 1,186,710
Sec. State
Franken 1,179,000
Coleman 1,185,993
Franken is missing almost 10,000 votes!”
Another blogger at 4:15 am posted the following:
“I don’t get the numbers . There appears to be two, one at the Sec of State and the other at CNN. Somehow CNN seems to be or thinks they are ahead of the Sec of states numbers.”
So for about 30 minutes at just after 4:00 am there were two different tallies running simultaneously at CNN and the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website that seemed very odd. It would not be surprising that numerous media outlets would have tallies that would lag the official tally at the Secretary of State website. But having CNN’s numbers running higher and ahead of the numbers on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website for only about 30 minutes seems to require another as of yet unidentified explanation.
It is also interesting to note that there are rumors trickling in that some of the precincts in the urban and heavily democratic voting areas of the state did NOT transmit their results over the internet from the voting machines to the respective county vote tabulators. But rather many of the memory cards were hand delivered to their respective county tabulation locations.
Doing this obviously prevents any man-in-the-middle attacks that have been described in the Mike Connell investigation. What I find fascinating is why this was done. Was it because of what was found out on Monday during the Mike Connell testimony? And what accounted for the subtraction of votes in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday November 5th?
If it wasn’t clear before it is clear now that there are plenty of issues that have come to light warranting the need for a recount, even if it wasn’t already dictated by state law. Thankfully in Minnesota there is a paper trail and we will soon find out just how accurate the initial results were and especially the results in precincts where electronic voting machines were used. Even though Norm Coleman prematurely claimed victory and called on Franken to waive a recount on Wednesday morning, everyone else including the media is settling in for not knowing the final outcome for a few more weeks. Let every vote be counted … not by machines but by human hand.
Eric Nelson is freelance writer, an editor at OpEdNews, and a spiritual progressive from Minnesota who has become more politically active. The reasons for this should be obvious to most; rising poverty, a broken health care system, and a growing global environmental crisis. Eric’s writings are as “fair and balanced” as those of FOX news. Eric is also a web informatics expert.
A partisan nonprofit group calling itself Minnesota Majority is calling for federal authorities to investigate allegations of widespread voter fraud in Minnesota. They’ve filed a lawsuit, but I doubt they’ll want a full investigation and forensic accounting of the vote, which is what the public would be demanding if they had a clue.
Here’s the article from that nutty right wing website, Newsmax:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/minnesota_fraud_lawsuit/2009/06/02/220818.html
Lawsuit Alleges Voter Fraud in Minnesota
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 8:50 PM
A public watchdog group is calling for federal authorities to investigate allegations of widespread voter fraud in Minnesota, charging that state election officials have been unable to establish the eligibility of over 30,000 persons whose ballots were included in the November election.
A lawsuit filed by the nonprofit group Minnesota Majority alleges that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and 25 county election officials failed to reconcile registrations — matching votes cast with actual voter registrations of people who live at valid addresses — thereby casting a shadow over the legitimacy of thousands of ballots cast on Nov. 4.
The lawsuit transcends the issues being debated in the ongoing Senate election contest between Democrat Al Franken and former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, which is now under review by the state’s supreme court.
“When you’re talking about a major U.S. Senate race that’s being decided by 312 votes, whether you’re for Coleman or Franken, it doesn’t give me a great deal of confidence in the election,” Minnesota Majority founder and CEO Jeff Davis tells Newsmax. “I would guess that both camps would be really interested in knowing what the heck is going on.”
Davis is calling for a federal investigation into what he sees as systemic voter fraud in Minnesota elections. Minnesota law allows people to show up at the polls on Election Day, fill out a voter registration card based on a pledge that they are eligible, and cast a ballot.
Officials then have six weeks to verify that the voter lives at a valid address in the district, and to update the voter rolls accordingly. The votes questioned in the lawsuit have already been counted.
Several prominent Minnesota state GOP legislators are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, a former secretary of state and GOP state representative, told StarTribune.com there is “no excuse” for the apparent failure to reconcile all voter-registration discrepancies following one of the closest U.S. Senate races ever.
Davis says preliminary research indicates some addresses provided on Nov. 4 correspond with “city parks, business developments, freeways, and empty lots.” He contends felons, non-citizens, and people who had already died all “participated” in the November elections.
Ritchie helped preside over the vote recount that saw Coleman slide from a 775-vote lead to the current 312-vote deficit by which he trails Democrat Al Franken. He said voter-registration lists are continually being updated to match the total certified by the state canvassing board.
“You’ll never get a perfect correlation between the two,” Ritchie told StarTribune.com “We were at 40,000 in April. We’re at [a discrepancy of] about 30,000 now.”
Davis’s response: “You’re still out of compliance with the law. And tell that to Norm Coleman, who’s fighting over 312 votes.”
Minnesota Majority’s original pleading alleged that the State Canvassing Board’s vote totals showed more than 400,000 votes unaccounted for on the state’s voter registration roles. Questions soon arose about the accuracy of that total, however.
Following Ritchie’s admission that there were 30,000 names unaccounted for, Minnesota Majority attorneys modified their petition to accept Ritchie’s numbers.
“Because the plaintiffs will rely on statements of fact made by the Secretary of State, there should be no dispute about the facts. That both simplifies and strengthens the case, and will probably lower its cost,” said Erick Kaardal, legal counsel in the case.
Davis says the exact number of unverified ballots is less important than establishing that election officials are not in compliance with the law.
“We owe Secretary of State Ritchie thanks,” says Davis, president of Minnesota Majority and one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Secretary of State and county election officials. “Secretary Ritchie basically made our case for us.”
“This office does not comment about ongoing litigation,” John Aiken, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, stated in an e-mail in response to a Newsmax request for comment. “However, I think it is important to clarify a couple of points.
“First, while frivolous lawsuits are filed all the time, the court will ultimately determine the fate of this lawsuit. Second, it isn’t surprising that this group came up with such a large number when its analysis missed data from the entire Minnesota Eighth Congressional District. One might say that such flawed analysis does not inspire confidence in their organization. In addition, a review of 2004 data indicates that 50,000 voter histories were never recorded and there is no evidence we are aware of to show that the previous administration tried to resolve it.
“Finally, since the November 2008, election officials have been inundated with thousands of data practices requests related to the U.S. Senate recount and ongoing subsequent court contest. County election officials continue to perform their maintenance to the statewide voter registration database daily,” Aiken stated in the e-mail.
Davis has enumerated several examples of what he considers flaws in Minnesota’s election system, which occasionally has been touted as a model for other states:
# Davis says Minnesota voters do not need a photo ID or proof of voter registration to cast a ballot.
# State election law allows any voter to “vouch” for the residency of up to 15 other voters, provided the residency is later verified. Vouching for other voters requires filling out a form. In St. Cloud, he says, there were reports of a bus of young people arriving at polls, with one person claiming to vouch for the residency of the entire group of passengers. “We have stories of people standing there vouching for people and asking them, ‘What’s your name again?'” Davis says. “They don’t even know these people.”
# Information provided by same-day voters is checked by mailing a “verification postcard” to the address provided. “Their indication that they have a problem that has to be registered is the post card comes back,” Davis says. “But that’s after the fact. The vote is in, and it’s counted. There’s no way to extract that vote from the mix.”
# At a bare minimum, Davis says, a would-be voter in Minnesota should be required to present a photo ID. He adds: “And then you have to be able to verify the other aspects of the law — you can’t be a felon, you have to be a citizen of the United States. Just because you have a drivers license doesn’t mean you’re a citizen.”
The Minnesota Majority organization has scheduled a news conference on Wednesday to highlight votes that were apparently cast on behalf of individuals who died prior to Election Day.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
The South Carolina Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate this past Tuesday was rigged outright, and it appears that current state officials are the culprits.
I’ve heard that said, but it doesn’t make sense. The Republican incumbent is favored to win by a large majority, regardless of the Democratic candidate.
The motive isn’t all that clear yet, but I have a feeling it won’t be that difficult to deduce once the general election day shenanigans play out in November.
One possibility is that by having degenerate felon Alvin Greene’s name representing the Democratic Party near the top of the ticket there will be much more drop-off than there would be if the legitimate candidate Vic Rawl were there. This means that a considerable percentage of potential Democratic voters will see Alvin Greene’s name and be immediately discouraged from considering any Democrats further down the ballot. Also, far fewer Democrats will feel compelled to get out to the polls in the first place. Having no real candidate means having no real campaign in that race either.
The fact is that Alvin Greene appears to have been handed the $10,000 filing fee by someone who is managing to stay anonymous. It is also a fact that leading into this election South Carolina has chosen to buy up electronic voting machines which other states have outlawed as too easily hacked.
It is possible that Democrats discovered some serious dirt on Jim DeMint and have been planning to leak it closer to the general election. The GOP may have become aware of this and decided to carry out a preemptive neutering of the Democrat’s position so that even with said dirt exposed Democrats would have no legitimate candidate to reap the benefits.
If there is one thing I can say about politics, it is that nothing happens without a reason. And certainly nothing as serious as the rigging of an election happens without a considerable payoff.
Ted Stevens was killed in a plane crash this morning.
Stevens had already survived one plane crash in his life. “On December 4, 1978, the crash of a Learjet 25C at Anchorage International Airport killed five people. Ted Stevens survived; his wife, Ann, did not.”*
* from Wikipedia
Wisconsin Republican Party, Tea Party groups, and conservative activists “Americans for Prosperity” caught on tape colluding to use voter caging to prevent minorities and students from voting.
http://coloradopols.com/diary/13822/americans-for-prosperity-gop-implicated-in-wisconsin-votecaging-plot
“Nicholas A. Marsh, one of the Justice Department Lawyers being investigated for criminal contempt in connection with the botched Set. Ted Stevens prosecution, has committed suicide, his lawyer confirmed Monday.”
http://www.mainjustice.com/2010/09/27/stevens-case-prosecutor-commits-suicide/
Some of you may have noticed, the Alaska US Senate race was rigged again, and again they did it the old fashioned way. They just tossed out some Miller ballots here and there, and ‘completed’ or ‘corrected’ several write-in ballots for Murkowski. Miller was the Tea Partier Republican who knocked out Murkowski, the establishment Republican, in the GOP primary earlier. She didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and ran again in the general as a write-in candidate. Amazingly, she supposedly got
Just for the record, it is also clear that the US Senate election in Nevada was also rigged, but in that case in favor of the incumbent Democrat Harry Reid. Exit polls showed Reid falling behind all day. At 5pm it was reported that he was 3% down and then suddenly that number was changed to 0%. It was said to be some sort of correction, but not explained in detail. The moment I saw it I posted on several conservative blogs my prediction that Reid would win by a very narrow margin after a prolonged count.
It looks possible that something similar also happened in the Washington US Senate race where incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has subsequently retained her seat.
In each of these cases, I preferred the candidate which benefited from the rigging. I just prefer even more to have integrity in our elections. I’m old fashioned like that.
Oooops, I posted as “Michigan” again. That shouldn’t be a problem though, since I’m guessing the entire state agrees with me on pretty much everything I say.
I didn’t finish one of my sentences above. I meant to say “Amazingly, she supposedly got almost 93,000 people to write her name correctly on the portion of their ballots where you can do that.
It looks to me like approximately 11,500 votes projected to have been cast for Democratic Candidate Scott McAdams are missing. Interestingly, that number is just about the same as Murkowski’s margin of victory over Miller. That margin is just a little more than is necessary to avoid a free challenge option for Miller.
The Teabag Republican, Joe Miller, is now taking the state to court. He wants the ballots all examined by hand.