Minnesota starts the recount process

[wellstone dem]

Source: St. Cloud Times

The high-profile nature of the Senate race recount has brought lawyers and campaign volunteers to nearly every county courthouse in the state, some to request data and others to observe the security processes for ballots.

Coleman and Franken representatives have been in the rotunda of the Stearns County Administration Building this week to observe the locked room where the county ballots will be until the recount. Representatives also have been in Morrison and Benton counties.

“We’ve had both Coleman and Franken (representatives) here for awhile,” Neyssen said. “They sat in our hallway because we don’t have a building like Stearns does.”

*****

Recounts can’t start until the current results are reviewed by the State Canvassing Board. That is scheduled for Tuesday. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie appointed two district court judges and two Supreme Court justices to serve on the canvassing board with him.

Read more: http://www.sctimes.com/article/20081115/NEWS01/111150017&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

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Headline is a little misleading, the canvas (review of reported results) will be completed Tuesday. Recount starts Wednesday.

[onehandle]

1. Go Al! nt

[Eric J in MN]

2. The 5 people judging challenged ballots seems to be...

....2 Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Independent.

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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMpTmr96V5hKIfyHT4Av4jsVQgrQD94DUP4G0


Fritz Knaak, Coleman's lead lawyer, said he was comfortable with the board's makeup. "The people of this state should feel good about who's on the panel," he said.

Franken spokesman Andy Barr jabbed at Coleman supporters who have raised questions about Ritchie's impartiality.

"I think we can all now see that their claims were just political posturing," Barr said. "Today, Mark Ritchie has named two partisan Republican Supreme Court justices to the state canvassing board."
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[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. Maybe I'm biased but I'm a little skeptical of Minnesota's brand of "independent."

Maybe it was Jesse Ventura and how he sided with the rethugs in the '02 Senate race.

[Zorra]

3. Coleman's reps are probably trying to figure out how to get Al's reps

out of the building so they can get into that room and steal Dem voter ballots.

[scarletwoman]

4. That's absurd. Nobody's going to steal any ballots.

:eyes:

[Zorra]

6. Only because they can't get away with it.

I guess I'm getting cynical.

Golly, those nice, honest republicans would never do anything so corrupt as to try to cheat in an election.
:sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

10. You forgot the "sarcasm" symbol.

[scarletwoman]

12. No. You and Zorra forgot your tinfoil hat smilies.

Although what you both really need are "talking out of your ass" smilies.

I live in Minnesota, I know exactly how the recount is going to be conducted. There will be absolutely NO opportunity for anyone to "steal" ballots. It's too stupid an idea to merit even a nano-second of speculation. You may as well speculate that Martians are going to attack during the recount and abduct the Secretary of State -- it would have the same degree of grounding in reality.

[Zorra]

13. Do you believe that republicans have "stolen" some elections over the past 8

years?

Do you believe Bu*h genuinely won the 2000 election?

And BTW, my original post was a pretty much a jest aimed at republicans because of their repeated nefarious practices in the election realm, which some republicans actually went to jail for.

However, I stand by my assertion that if republicans could possibly steal Dem voter ballots, they would do it in a shrew's heartbeat.

Sweetie...back up, take a deep breath, and step away from the coffee machine.

[scarletwoman]

16. First of all, the thread is about the Minnesota recount. Why in the world would I infer that

your one-liner was about anything other than that?

Second, since voters don't register by party in Minnesota, there aren't any "Dem" ballots, there are just ballots.

Third, the physical ballots have all been locked away since the initial results were announced, and won't be taken out until the recount process begins, by election officials in a room full of witnesses.

Which is why I said that it was "absurd" to posit a scenario of Republicans "stealing Dem ballots". What are they going to do -- knock everyone out of the way, leap at the counting table, snatch up handsfull of ballots and then tear ass out the door to a getaway car?

I'm just really tired of people getting all woo-woo about the Minnesota recount. This is my home state we're talking about, I've worked as an election judege for several years, and we have probably the best-run and cleanest elections in the whole damn country.

[Dumak]

19. Sure, you are an honest election judge,

but I am going to play devil's advocate. How many election judges are there in Minnesota? If a small number were corrupt enough to try to cheat, what kinds of things could they do? Could they gain access to ballots before the recount? If so, then couldn't they over-vote the ballots they didn't like, making them invalid for the recount? The total number of ballots would remain the same.

[dflprincess]

20. Election judges in Minnesota are paid a small amount when they work the polls

but they are not city, state, or county employees (unless they took a day off from their real job to run the polls). The ballots are under lock and key and the election judges don't have anymore access to them than I do.

I'm sure if he could, Normie and his minions would steal the election, but I don't see how they can do it at this point. Everyone involved in the recount from SOS down to the last county clerk (regardless of party) first priority is that the integrity of the recount. Even Pawlenty came out this weekend and defended Mark Ritchie against Republican hacks who are trying to throw clouds over the process (I assume this is part of Timmy's plan to make the public think Republicans are not crazy.)

[scarletwoman]

21. In answer to your questions: none of those scenarios are possible.

"Could they gain access to ballots before the recount?"

Once a precinct has tallied their ballots, the ballots go immediately under seal with election judges of both parties as witnesses. The precinct election official then transports the sealed ballots to the county court house, where the tallies that have been written on the sealed envelopes or boxes are recorded and relayed to the Secretary of State. As soon as it was known that the Senate race was extremely close, every county election official in the state put the ballots under lock and key.

Back to the precinct level -- the first count that happens after the poll closes is to compare the number of used ballots to the number of voters who signed in. That number HAS to match. The blank ballots arrive in numbered lots -- each time a lot is opened, that number is recorded. So there's a double check on the number of ballots used.

In the case of small precincts where there are no optiscan machines, the ballots are counted by hand by the election judges of both parties. Where scanners are used, the number of ballots recorded from the lot numbers have to agree with the total on the readout from the scanner -- AND this number, added to the number of any ballots rejected by the scanner, has to match the number of voters who signed in.

In hand count only precincts, each group of ballots goes into its own sealed envelope -- which means that any questionable ballots such as over-votes or mis-marked ballots are sealed away separate from the rest.

In precincts with scanners, all machine rejected ballots are also sealed away seperately from the other ballots. In both types of counts, the number of questionable/scanner rejected ballots is recorded on the outside of the sealed envelope/box, as well as recorded on the official tally sheet that gets turned in with the ballots.

You would have to have a conspiracy of at least three people to agree to altering ballots BEFORE they were sealed up. And at that point on election night, no one actually knows how the vote is going in the rest of the state, since while you're still at your precinct polling station, you are in a media blackout, the door is locked, and no outsider is allowed in.

Furthermore, if you fudge ballots that have already been scanned and recorded, how would you explain the discrepancy?

"If so, then couldn't they over-vote the ballots they didn't like, making them invalid for the recount? The total number of ballots would remain the same."

Once the ballots have gone to the county seat, only one person, the sworn county election official, has access to them. As outlined above, any funny business would have to happen BEFORE the ballots leave the precinct, and by law, there are election judges of both parties present until the very end when the ballots are sealed up for transport by the precinct captain.

So, barring some nefarious conspiracy at the precinct level, tallies have been kept and recorded every step of the way. And the ballots have been locked up once they reached the county court house. There's really no way someone -- even if they somehow got access to the sealed ballots -- could pull out good ballots and switch them to the seperate group of bad ballots without such tampering being detected.

It would involve unsealing TWO different packs of ballots, and changing the written totals on the two different packs -- and there's STILL the other official tally form filled out at the precinct with the numbers that would have originally matched the totals written on the outside of the ballot packs. That tally form would have been signed off on by all the election judges present as counters and witnesses during the precinct level count.

Paper ballots -- you cannot fudge totals when there are paper ballots. The recount will be accurate and fair.

sw

[elocs]

5. Also, the results of the canvas will be the official election result,

and not the tally from election night. It will not overturn the election results from election day, it is the official election day result. Then the recount.

Al Franken has said that he believes that MN elections are very honest and I would agree.

[Hulk]

7. Good luck to you Al Franken.

I'm not totally thrilled about Al Franken as a Senator, but I'm terrified at having normy coleman to help stall the progress of this nation.

Go Al!!

[happygoluckytoyou]

8. hey yeh Minnesota here..we got yer 1 right here..yeh ay..got yer 2..anyone got a spare finger? yeh?

[glinda]

9. I suspect Morrison County will have some different numbers.

Just a hunch.

[dflprincess]

14. Why Morrison? (eom)

[glinda]

17. It is a heavily

conservative area. (Even given St. Cloud University and Brainerd Technical College.) Not because of that only but here is a case in point. We moved here two years ago and where we cast votes in a teenie township, the four judges were broken down like this: Republican, Evangelical extremest Republican who I suspect mostly took care of the votes, an Independent that struck me as primarily a Republican and a timid but hostile Democrat. Votes are cast way way out in the Country "farm field" in a small two room building with no supervision. There are quite a few isolated voting areas and quite a few angry conservatives as we have found out since moving here. Bleeech! (want to move!) When we first voted here, I was so intuitively uncomfortable I told my husband that I wanted to vote absentee next time at the Courthouse. I could be wrong but my immediate unease with voting here and the level of anger I witness (lots of gun owners also) leaves me suspicious of the vote handling in this County. I could be wrong but....This is the most conservative area that I have lived in. There is actually a Church here that has a "pro-life" billboard on their lawn. I heard that someone else owns the small piece of property but it is right next to the Church. Like try 20' from the front steps.

[Dinger]

15. I Heard Bill Clinton Was Going To Georgia . . .

He needs to go to Minnesota too! Obama would be HUGE!

[dflprincess]

22. There would be no point.

Georgia is having a run off election so there is still campaigning to do. In Minnesota we're just having a recount.

[catgirl]

18. Norm may be relieved if he loses at this point

With his looming legal problems, he's finding himself in a similar position as Stevens.