Comments on Beyond The Polls: State of the Day - Minnesota

I was referring to vouching. Thanks for the clari...

2009-01-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

I was referring to vouching. Thanks for the clarification.

Hi, I read your work throughout the 2008 campaign...

2009-01-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

Hi, I read your work throughout the 2008 campaign and found your work useful as a counter balance to other pundits.

As a Minnesota election judge, I do have a correction. It is not same day with no I.D. You have to have a valid driver's license or other government issued picture id or a license with an old address but a utility bill with your name at the new address. The only exception is vouching. A neighbor, who takes an oath and signs a list as having taken one, can vouch for your residence.

A quiet factor that may affect the DFL side of the...

2009-01-01T18:04:00.001-05:00

A quiet factor that may affect the DFL side of the governor race is still the Republican National Convention. Some of the most activist Democrats are still angry about the loss of civil liberties in the early September siege of St Paul. For some reason, they just don't like pepper spray, mass arrests, storm troopers or Bob Fletcher that much. Gaertner prolongs the agony by not droppying the phony charges. Chris Coleman prolongs it by his robotic praise of the policing job done. This means that every single fundraiser or public event that Gaertner has is going to draw protesters. Same with Chris Coleman (although he hasn't filed or declared yet for governor). Most people may not remember or even know about the many innocents who were arrested or pepper-sprayed. But the ongoing presence of protesters will leave a bad taste in the mouths of lukewarm supporters. People WILL remember that unpleasant feeling when they think about writing campaign checks or voting.

With regards to the "sugar daddy" comments, again,...

2009-01-01T18:04:00.000-05:00

With regards to the "sugar daddy" comments, again, I quoted Franken directly. Yes, Franken was referring to an alleged political benefactor. My main point was actually that this race reached extremely low depths or accusations even for politics (see Coleman's frivolous lawsuit), and used Franken's use of the term as an illustration of the term. I somehow figured that nobody would actually infer that I thought Franken accused Coleman of performing sexual favors for money, but apparently I was wrong.

With regards to the recount, my analyis of the ballots showed inconsistencies, notably of the bubble with X's that I mentioned. I'm not alone...Bloomberg News wrote an article on this subject and agreed with my concerns.

As for Minnesota election law holes, how long do you have? For starters, the registration has no way to catch somebody registered at an old address who then same day registers at a new address. The checks on people "assisting" mentally handicapped voters, are nonexistent. Check out the busload of mentally handicapped voters and assistants going precinct to precinct in Ramsey County on Election Day.

Same day voter registration is inherently vulnerable to manipulation. The big problem is that no verification of the registration can occur. Allowing someone to "prove" residence with another person vouching for them or with a cell phone bill just adds to the problem. I don't necessarily believe in the "horrors" of voting without ID, but I do think something stronger than Minnesota's system is necessary if a state chooses to have same day registration. A noncitizen could easily vote even if all he had was a cell phone bill.

I didn't actually believe so strongly in that until I actually worked in Minnesota doing election law before and right after the election. Yes, that's right, I worked on the legal aspects of this race. Just because you don't agree with me does not mean I don't know what I'm talking about.

Having said that, let me reiterate my main point. We'll never know who should have won this race. That is quite sad, especially since this process of counting hasn't really helped.

As someone who was actually on the ground for the ...

2009-01-01T12:03:00.000-05:00

As someone who was actually on the ground for the entire Coleman/Franken recount and subsequent legal action and canvass board meetings, I have to say that your description of the Senate race is blatantly false, in addition to clearly slanted towards favoring Coleman.

First, the "Democratic Secretary of State" has made no decision about the way to count ballots or mechanics of the recount without his 5-member panel, including one Dem, two Repubs, one independent, and himself.

Can you name an election law, besides same-day registration without ID, that leaves "enough holes to drive a H3 Hummer through"? Do you know anything about election law more than Republican talking points about the horrors of not requiring an ID? Or is that it?

Since I was at the Nov. 2 debate, I feel confident in pointing out that Al Franken questioned Norm Coleman's "political Sugar Daddy." I guess I'm not surprised that you provided no background on this, but perhaps it would behoove you and your audience to know that the FBI has launched a probe into the merits of a sitting Senator's wife possibly getting money funneled from a wealthy Texan. You might see it as another one of Franken's smears, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't.

I'm not even going to go into the voter intent questions on the ballot since I would have to refer to election law which is clearly not your strong suit. Suffice it to say that protocols were established and if you actually watched all the canvassing board proceedings, you would see that two Republicans, two Democrats, and one Independent were pretty balanced in their approach.

I appreciate the work you put into making this almanac of sorts, being involved in politics myself, but focus instead on races in your home state or races that you followed closely.

BS Meter also forgets that MN-6 is generally a Rep...

2008-12-31T19:29:00.000-05:00

BS Meter also forgets that MN-6 is generally a Republican district. According to Swing State Project's initial calculations, McCain won the district 53-45. In 2004, Bush defeated Kerry 57-42 in the district. In 2000, Bush defeated Gore 52-42 in the district.

It's disingenuous to try to claim that Bachmann only won because there was a "moron running as an independent who picked up 10% of the vote." In actuality, Bachmann almost certainly won because (a) she is a Republican and (b) the district is generally a Republican one. Surely, Bachmnann's comments hurt her performance, but not enough to overwhelm the partisan leaning of the district. If anything, many Republican voters probably threw their vote to Anderson as a "protest" vote - just as many Obama voters refused to vote for Al Franken and gave support to the Independence Party candidate instead.

As AR noted, if not for Bachmann's unfortunate comments only a few weeks before the election, Tinklenberg would have probably had no shot at all.

Gee, and I thought that the election of Barack Oba...

2008-12-31T18:12:00.000-05:00

Gee, and I thought that the election of Barack Obama was going to change the tone of our politics. I might ask why you read if you think I'm an ignoramus, but since you did visit the site I'll respond.

I quoted Franken directly from a November 2 debate. The following is from Patrick Condon's account of the debate in the November 3 LA Times. I think aptly summarizes the depths to which this race scraped.

..................

"You have an ad that's defaming my wife," Coleman said. "I think there's a line in this business. You can take any shot you want at the candidate. Mr. Franken, rather than rejecting it, is promoting it."

Franken replied that Coleman must answer questions about the allegations -- and rejected the idea that discussion of it is an attack on Laurie Coleman. "This is not about Norm Coleman's wife," Franken said. "This is about Sen. Coleman's sugar daddy."

..................

As for Bachmann, large amounts of votes for the Independence Party are simply a fact of life in Minnesota. Looking through the results, plurality winners are quite common. You cannot simply assume that the third party candidate took votes solely away from Tinklenberg. Before Bachmann opened her mouth, Tinklenberg was generally thought to have little thought of winning. The DCCC was on constantly for him, even though he had very little money himself. He had advantages and he still lost. This suggests he was a weak candidate. Combined with the Republican lean of the district, you cannot the third guy caused Bachmann's win by himself.

What a lame analysis. You really should learn abou...

2008-12-31T15:53:00.000-05:00

What a lame analysis. You really should learn about the races you're writing about before going public with your ignorance. Franken didn't accuse Coleman of having a "sugar daddie." Not even close. And Bachmann won because there was a moron running as an independent who picked up 10% of the vote because his name was Anderson and no one knew that his own party refused to endorse him, even though he was identified as the Independence Party candidate on the ballot. The internets are full of ignoramuses and their opinions. We don't need another one.