MN Sen Recount (UPDATE: Stuart Smalley certified winner, lawsuit forthcoming)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Apparentely the Coleman campaign person in my precinct didn't consider my write-in for Bill Ayers to be an identifying mark. Or the StarTrib just didn't get that ballot.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I am confident, though, that Democrats will find a way to steal this election, in either court or the senate.

I hope so...

You advocate fraud?

As Tweed said, this election was within the system's margin of error. If it comes down to a random guess (as it has), then yes, I support fraud.

Hm, so you support breaking the law in support of your cause?  That sure makes a lot of sense.

You didn't already know this? These people said ACORN was doing no wrong by committing registration fraud, so is it a shock that they are hoping Franken steals this one?

Because ACORN WAS committing no wrong other than perhaps having poorly designed rules for paying workers. They paid workers per registration, so some made up bogus registrations to collect more money. ACORN suspected many of these were bogus, but that's largely irrelevant since they were required by law to turn them in no matter how obviously and blatantly false they were. ACORN was not committing fraud, rather they were the ones being defrauded.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Maplewood is a St Paul suburb of 35,000.

The wiki article has only this to add to the standard statistical crap...

"Politics

Maplewood's Mayor (Diana Longrie) and Council (Rebecca Cave, Erik Hjelle, Kathy Junemann, and Will Rossbach) have garnered metro-area attention over the last year for a number of issues. Chief among these issues are the firings, resignations, and re-organizational plan that eliminated some positions."

lol

Also notable is its really weird and illogical shape. It's mostly north of St. Paul, but then a sliver of it about a mile along runs down the east side of St. Paul and is the only thing separating it from Washington county.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Like, I imagine that Coleman has challenged at least a few more McCain-I'llLeaveSenateBlank votes than the reverse for Franken.

Those are all just basically in one county, and it's small. It was probably just one individual idiot challenger.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This sarcastic line of attack against Silver is getting as annoying as is just as idiotic as all that "LOLZ KANSAS IS SAFE OBAMA!" crap from the usual cast of morons.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wright County is a sh!thole. It's a frequent laughingstock of Minneapolitians. Thank God so much of the filth that infest there got foreclosed and now lots of newly-built subdivisions have been transformed in virtual ghost towns. Serves those dipsh!ts right for taking subprime loans.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Idiots who thought they could afford disgustingly big houses. Oops.

Minneapolis is now gaining population. Myself being one of the 2008 additions.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Idiots who thought they could afford disgustingly big houses. Oops.

Minneapolis is now gaining population. Myself being one of the 2008 additions.

As opposed to the idiots in North Minneapolis who thought they could afford an overpriced house.  Oops!   There were idiots there too!  Probably more of them in absolute numbers than any other county in Minnesota.

People have different lifestyles and housing wants and needs.  "Liberals" are supposed to be tolerant of that.

North Minneapolis is the ghetto. It's NOT the place that attracts the types looking to raise their family in a too big overpriced house.

Sigh... Phil, you're letting your irrational anger at him cloud your judgment.

I think I've stated about three times now that my problem isn't with him but with the idiot that adore him.

We all know when your hatred of him began: When people started saying they didn't care about your worthless anecdotal evidence and trusted him giving Obama an >80% chance of winning Pennsylvania. Well who was more right?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Thank God the recount is finally 100% completed. 

Expect a news conference by Franken's lawyers within the hour announcing that Franken has finished  in the lead.  I feel sure they will announce that the lead is - -- exactly 27 votes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's another one of those Coleman challengers who belong in HELL:

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/Stearns_StWendelP2_challengedballot33.pdf

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The fact that these decisions were unanimous makes me wonder if Coleman is telling the Republicans on the board to vote in Franken's favor and basically trying to throw the election. As MW08 pointed out right before the election, Coleman is probably better off losing from a legal perspective (much like Bill Jefferson would've been if he had lost in '04.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

County governments are non-partisan,

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

County governments are non-partisan,

Nobody is really non-partisan.

No but it does mean that there's not so much of a correlation of those elected and the county's general lean. Both Hennepin and Ramsey county have Republican sheriffs for example elected on a non-partisan ballot (though Ramsey's barely won and is likely toast in 2010 after his RNC crap.)

BTW, I wonder if this'll change the Republicans staunch anti-IRV stance, as exit polls showed Coleman would've won a two-way race.

Franken now the favorite on InTrade btw.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

County governments are non-partisan,

Nobody is really non-partisan.

No but it does mean that there's not so much of a correlation of those elected and the county's general lean. Both Hennepin and Ramsey county have Republican sheriffs for example elected on a non-partisan ballot (though Ramsey's barely won and is likely toast in 2010 after his RNC crap.)

BTW, I wonder if this'll change the Republicans staunch anti-IRV stance, as exit polls showed Coleman would've won a two-way race.

really? Coleman only ran 2 points behind McCain but Franken ran about 12 behind Obama.

The exit poll says without Barkley Coleman would've gotten 46%, Franken 43% and the rest just wouldn't have voted.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The thing is that the close race in the first round doesn't really matter (though granted it would if it was between the second and third place candidates.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's the InTrade numbers now?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It'd be really awesome if Franken was declared the winner on my birthday.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm proud that I voted for Bill Ayers as a write-in over Lorie Skjerven Gildea.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm proud that I voted for Bill Ayers as a write-in over Lorie Skjerven Gildea.

Dunno if I'm the first person to ask this, but why didn't you vote for Franken?

I proudly voted for Franken. I also have one of his bumper stickers on my car.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It wasn't 100 found ballots. It was a tabulating error in a town that resulted in Franken being undercounted by 100 votes that was corrected.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm taking a look at how the board ruled on many ballots, and you can tell there's at least a slight pro-Franken bias to them. They tend to throw out any ballot that has any stray marks resembling an "X" over a filled-in Coleman oval even if any others aren't filled in. Yet they don't seem to apply the same standard to similar Franken votes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The board ruled against counting this for Coleman and that it's an undervote:

http://senaterecount.startribune.com/media/ballotPDFs/carver_Victoria_2_challengedballot9.pdf

Not that I'm complaining.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

LOL@the whining Republicans. The board making these decisions consists of:

The Secretary of State (Democrat)
Two Supreme Court justices appointed by Pawlenty.
A long time Democratic Ramsey County justice and one appointed by Ventura.

So that's two Democrats, two Republicans and an independent. Sounds like a fair board to me, not a partisan Democratic one.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Quite a few challenges would result in a vote for that candidate, most notably those ones with two ovals filled but one crossed out. The machine would count that as an overvote, but the board has been calling them for the candidate.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He's reading the three elections as:

-PA-13 2004
-Santorum 2006
-McCain in Pennsylvania 2008

Basically the three notorious ones that he blew big time.