Ah, I see. I thought you meant that the process was unfair to one of the candidates.
Yes, they (or the equivalent) do apply to in-person voting.
When you go to vote, they find your name in the list of registered voters, read the address off, and ask if you still live there. So that’s #1. (Though they don’t ask for any proof that you live there.)
Then they ask you to sign the registered voter book, so that’s #2. (Again, though, I’ve never noticed them taking the time to actually check your signature – they always seem pretty busy at my polling place.)
It was obviously unfair to the Republican, because the Republican lost. If it had been fair, the Republican would have won. Try to keep up.
The next idiotic question is, why wasn’t Franken’s campaign manager named?
Robin
There was a bill that passed through both houses of the Legislature last year, that had several electoral reforms. Things like making absentee voting easier (so presumably less rejected absentee ballots), allowing registration via a simple check-off box on Drivers License renewal forms, etc.
It was vetoed by Republican Governor Pawlenty.
Al ain’t suing, as he is pretty much OK with the result.
Cullen Sheehan, Norm’s Campaign Manager.
Read what I wrote again. I wasn’t talking about the criteria for rejecting the ballots. I was talking about the criteria for challenging the rejection of those ballots. Do you understand the distinction?
Again, for the regular ballots, if a campaign challenged it, the challenge was reviewed by the Canvasing Board, who determined if it was valid or not.
For reviewed absentee ballots, if a campaign challenged it, it was rejected. End of story.
Surely you can see how the second process could favor one candidate or the other. If the second process had been used for regular ballots, Coleman would be ahead by a significant margin right now. (He challenged more of the regular ballots than Franken did.)
If they’d used the same process for the normal ballots, Franken would have amped up the challenges too.
The fact is that the counting process was always the same for both candidates, regardless of whether it changed for different kinds of ballots. No candidate was ever given an advantage over another, and both candidates agreed to every process.
Yup. And part of the process that they both agreed to was that the validity of any challenged absentee ballots would be decided by an election contest in court. So why is Franken complaining about it?
He’s not.
Jesus, that Sheehan is a slimy little prick. I can’t decide if I should emulate him or want to flatten his face with a heavy book.
Robin
OK, where were these ballots in the process?
For ballots in the regular recount, the question of whether they belonged in Pile 5 - i.e. had no reason to not be counted - had already been settled. The only question was voter intent.
For the absentee ballots that had apparently been rejected for reasons other than the four legitimate reasons, the question was should they be counted. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the campaigns each agreed to allow the other a certain number of no-take-back vetoes in this process.
Sure, it’s a distinction. But it’s one that the two campaigns agreed to. And undoubtedly it was more Coleman’s idea than Franken’s; the Franken team has always wanted to see every legitimate ballot counted.
There’s no reason on earth that it would have, or should have, been. Hell, it shouldn’t have been an option for the absentee ballots either. But the MN Supreme Court gave the campaigns some wiggle room, and your guy took advantage of it. Now you’re complaining about what your guy did. Tough.
The reason was the Supreme Court ruling that all parties had to agree, and if they didn’t, then it would be settled by an election contest, which is currently in progress.
Who says you need to choose? 
Well the important distinction here is on the absentee ballots that were erroneously tossed out. The important thing to remember is that the ballots were not opened. The absolute veto applied to sealed ballots that had been rejected improperly for things like “weren’t dated next to signature” despite that not being a requirement. The campaigns had to both agree that the ballot was improperly rejected without knowing who it was a vote for. Once the ballots were opened, they would be subject to the standard rules for challenges on voter intent. There is no double standard between absentee and regular ballots–the difference is the absentee ballots have an extra layer of problems they can be rejected for and it was this level that both campaigns had veto power over without knowing whether or not they were rejecting a vote for himself or his opponent.
:eek:
I laughed. I cried. I put my put my head in a bucket of bleach.
Specifically to that? I don’t think so.
That was in the MN SC’s decision? Link and quote, please.
I’ve already provided them in this thread.
BrainGlutton’s earlier post brings to mind this old “Weekend Update” bit of Franken’s from his SNL days:
“… me, Al Franken.”
(With apologies if this has already been referred to as I just surfed into this thread and haven’t read every post.)