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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2009 20:04:43 GMT -5
It was bipartisan. The AG is a Democrat, but he's gone out of his way to make the whole process transparent and bipartisan.
Compare this to Florida where the AG had a Bush operative in her office, calling the shots, during the entire recount and legal procedures.
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Post by Wolfgang on Feb 3, 2009 23:59:18 GMT -5
Is this thing over yet? I just read a blip about reexamining 5,000 rejected ballots. Oy vei...
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Post by goGopherBill on Feb 4, 2009 13:53:47 GMT -5
And the court just agreed with Coleman..therefore the AG and Democratic poll judges have been overturned...
GEE ..go figure.
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Post by OverAndUnder on Feb 4, 2009 14:02:02 GMT -5
Damn those activist judges, eh?
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Post by JT on Feb 4, 2009 14:21:42 GMT -5
Well, they *kind* of agreed with Coleman. They said that around 5000 absentee ballots should be re-examined could have evidence presented, to see whether they were improperly rejected (and opened/counted if they were).
Coleman wanted a review of all 11,000 IRABs.
The AG followed the Supreme Court ruling. His was an administrative task. The Supreme Court told him that absentee ballots should be checked to see whether they had been properly rejected, and provided the mechanism for determining whether they should be included in the recount. The instructions did not allow Ritchie to have a say in whether a particular ballot was counted -- it was up to the county officials, plus the Coleman representatives, plus the Franken representatives. Ritchie and the canvassing board counted all the ballots which they had been told to count, following the instructions of the MNSC.
(Edit to correct... the 5000 (really, about 4800) ballots are the available universe for Coleman to provide evidence for, that they were rejected improperly. If he presents enough evidence, then they will, presumably, be reviewed to see whether each particular ballot was rejected properly, or improperly, and counted if it was an improper rejection.)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2009 15:47:50 GMT -5
But the point is that Bill is once again misrepresenting the proceedings to this point as highly partisan. They were not.
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Post by goGopherBill on Feb 4, 2009 22:01:05 GMT -5
BS...I bet a dinner at Applebee's that Coleman wins and Heads roll after ...NEVER BEFORE HAS MN> HAD THIS PROBLEM.
I was-er-were a county Republican delegate and know these things.
Baaaa
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Post by JT on Feb 5, 2009 14:56:55 GMT -5
What problem is it that MN has never had before?
A close election? Sure we have. The 1962 governor's election -- Rolvaag defeated Anderson by 91 votes out of 1.3 million. It took five months before a winner was determined.
Improperly-rejected absentee ballots? I bet we have. The thing is that unless there's a close recount, it's not going to come up, and unless it's state-wide, it's not likely to show up as an issue. But that doesn't mean we haven't had absentee ballots rejected improperly. We just haven't noticed before.
My gut tells me that even with a review of 5000 absentee ballots, there aren't going to be anywhere near that many which are determined to have been rejected improperly. My guess is that it'll be no more than 1 in 10 of these that actually get opened and counted. And while it's possible that Franken will lose ground as a result of that counting, I don't think he's gonna lose 200+ votes worth of ground.
So, my gut says that Franken will eventually be determined the winner. I think that there'll be changes to absentee voting, but I don't think that heads will roll over it -- in general, I think the procedure is good, but the recount issues show that it's not perfect.
Of course, my gut could be wrong.
Oh... PS... it's not the AG and democratic poll judges who were overturned. Minnesota attorney general Lori Swanson has had very little to do with this. I think you meant (and I responded that way) Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. AG Swanson submitted a legal opinion for consideration by the Supreme Court, that counting the IRABs was the correct/lawful thing to do. That was when Franken was petitioning to have the absentee ballots reviewed/counted, and Coleman was opposing the move to have any absentee ballots reviewed.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2009 17:43:38 GMT -5
Yes, I meant Ritchie.
The one thing I cannot stand in arguments such as these are baseless accusations of fraud. Again, this is NOT like Florida where Harris had a Bush operative in her office during the entire fiasco, or even where the Florida Supreme Court was heavily Democratic.
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Post by hammer on Feb 6, 2009 14:55:33 GMT -5
The root cause of the problem is that elections have margins of error, but people don't want to believe that. Normally a margin of error of 0.01% in an election is plenty small enough to not worry about. But in cases like this (or the Washington governor's race in 2004), where the margin of victory is smaller than the margin of error, then people start to realize that the outcome of the election is essentially random. The election laws and processes are written as if it is possible to hold an election with millions of votes without there being any errors. This is silly. Our election laws should be changed such that error is accounted for, and procedures should be put into place for resolving these very close elections other than simply counting and recounting the ballots. Maybe rochambo would work. It certainly would save a lot of money. Bingo, you have hit the hammer on the nail. A procedure should be in place that declares a tie when the margin or error is breached. When the vote is so close it invites fraud (like ballots found in car trunks, hanging chads, etc.), and civility takes a holiday. A good way to break the tie would be a special election because the odds of two statistical dead heats back to back is almost zero. After two statistical dead heats you could have the state legislature choose. |
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Post by JT on Feb 6, 2009 15:46:21 GMT -5
That just invites recounts to try and get the outcome to be within the margin of error, though.
If we decide that a difference of 1500 or fewer votes (out of 3 million, to use a round number near the MN Senate race) is a statistical tie, then yes, this vote would go to a special election tiebreaker.
What about the hypothetical case where someone wins by 1400 votes? He's gonna ask for a re-count, hoping to get to 1501 votes, which would eliminate the need for a re-vote.
What about the hypothetical case where someone loses by 1600 votes? He's gonna demand a re-count, too, wanting to get the difference down to 1500 votes, and a runoff.
You've replaced one problem point ('zero') with two problem points (+ or - X, for some value of X).
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Post by hammer on Feb 6, 2009 16:09:06 GMT -5
That just invites recounts to try and get the outcome to be within the margin of error, though. If we decide that a difference of 1500 or fewer votes (out of 3 million, to use a round number near the MN Senate race) is a statistical tie, then yes, this vote would go to a special election tiebreaker. What about the hypothetical case where someone wins by 1400 votes? He's gonna ask for a re-count, hoping to get to 1501 votes, which would eliminate the need for a re-vote. What about the hypothetical case where someone loses by 1600 votes? He's gonna demand a re-count, too, wanting to get the difference down to 1500 votes, and a runoff. You've replaced one problem point ('zero') with two problem points (+ or - X, for some value of X). No, you use a percentage limit based upon F-test analysis and either allow one recount or no recounts. If you allow a recount you only use those ballots, people, and procedures that got you the initial count. That is you put in place procedures that are as cut and dry as possible based upon a mathematical/scientific foundation. I'm not saying that there still couldn't be political/legal challenges. The idea is to minimize as best as possible. |
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Post by mikegarrison on Feb 6, 2009 16:18:58 GMT -5
That just invites recounts to try and get the outcome to be within the margin of error, though. Not really. If the initial count is outside the margin of error, then it is accepted. There is no recount that needs to be made. If it's even one vote outside the margin of error, that's enough, because it would be thousands of votes in favor of the winner. The difference is that if the margin of error is set at 99% or whatever level of confidence, then just being on the edge of it means the difference between 99.1% and 89.9% that you know who the winner is. You can call recounts over and over again, but the answer is very, very unlikely to be different. Under the current system, when you get down to the margin where the recount comes in to play you are working with 50.1% or 49.9%. So people have a much stronger incentive to keep recounting until the dice roll their way. Because now the answer is actually pretty likely to change. |
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Post by JT on Feb 6, 2009 18:59:24 GMT -5
That invites fraud. If you can get your candidate to win by at least X votes, you don't have to worry about a recount. Hurrah!
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Post by mikegarrison on Feb 6, 2009 19:08:32 GMT -5
That invites fraud. If you can get your candidate to win by at least X votes, you don't have to worry about a recount. Hurrah! So? Nothing different than the way it is now, except that X >> 1, rather than X = 1. And actually, there should always be an option for a recount if the candidate demanding it is willing to pay for it. But few would in the 99% confidence case, while it can be a good investment in the 50/50 case. Very few elections end up in statistical ties. But our current system (generally speaking) is to pretend that there are no such things as statistical ties. Which is a mistake. In the last Senate election, Minnesota had a really close race and is still arguing and such in court. Georgia had a close election and held a runoff, settling the matter without having everyone in the state tossing fraud allegations back and forth. |
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