Challenged Ballots in the Minnesota Governor’s Race — Duluth Edition
Now that the challenged ballots from St. Louis County are available online, here’s a look at the nine from Duluth.
The first one is from precinct 3 (Lakeside) and the next two are from precinct 7 (Hunters Park).
In the next set, the first is from precinct 11 (Kenwood) and the next two are from precinct 19 (Downtown).
In the last set, the first is from precinct 24 (Duluth Heights), the second is from precinct 27 (Piedmont Heights) and the third is from precinct 34 (West Duluth).
Someone explain why this is so fun.
Don’t these people realize that a machine reads these ballots and the machine can’t figure out what crossing out one filled in oval means? They do feed their ballots into that very machine, right? Ugh. Next time, ask for a new ballot if you screw up the first one. It will save all of us a lot of time and frustration.
By the way, the opinion just came out explaining the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling that rejected Tom Emmer’s effort to force precincts to match the number of votes to signatures on polling rosters.
Read all 18 scintillating pages.
Apparenty these people never took a test in school. I thought we all figured out how to 1) read and 2) fill in the circle accordingly. Maybe it’s the pens vs. a no. 2 pencil that threw them off?
This could all be alleviated if they made a voting program for ipads and handed you one to vote on. Touch, touch, submit. Your vote was just counted. Turn it in, sanitize and hand to the next voter. The only other possible explanation is that there are a lot of people with undiagnosed lazy eyes and they keep missing the bubble…
I really, really hope Emmer accepts the inevitable and does not drag this on. Dayton won, fair and square.
TBH I don’t think it really is a problem at all. So, in St. Louis county there are a total of twenty some contested ballots, out of how many ballots cast? Most of contested ballots, honestly, shouldn’t really be contested given the “clear intent” guidelines. What problems there are can also be easily resolved by lowering the threshold for an automatic recount. Those optical machines are some of the best, robust and accurate voting machines out there. Better, more secure than Diabold, better than punch cards, faster than hand count and they give a paper trail.
There is probably a lot of pressure on Emmer now from the GOP to extend the legal battle as long as possible.
Threshold should be .2%
Just terrible. Time for Emmer to concede … but he won’t.
We’ve got to turn the screws then — letters-to-the-editor, emails to Emmer’s people. We cannot let the Republians hold us hostage to their grandiose ambitions.
Paul, I think this is fun because it makes me feel so capable and smart. I filled in my ovals correctly, yeah for me!
“Grandiose ambitions?” Sounds like some grandiose hyperbole.
The AP through the Strib says Emmer will probably concede Wednesday. There have been rumors that state Repubs will still try to litigate this to keep Pawlenty in past January 3 in an attempt to run some legislation through unimpeded — Republicans will control both houses after the 3rd and wouldn’t have to worry about mounting sufficient votes to overcome a Dayton veto.
TimK, that’s why we have to turn up the heat on the Republicans. It isn’t even close, it’s 9,000 votes for god’s sakes. Lojasmo is right, maybe the state should raise the threshold — as Minny becomes more politically “diverse,” automatic recounts are going to happen again and again if the threshold is only 1% of votes cast. It made sense in the Franken/Coleman race, made sense in the Ford/Mitchell race, makes no sense here.
You can turn down the heat now.
From Emmer’s concession speech: