November 6th, 2008 at 1:30 am
The “Duluth delay” is weird but there is supposed to be at least one election judge from each political party at each precinct. There is always a shortage of “urban republican” election judges.
One potential area of inquiry is the background of the election judges. Did the “republican” judges, as self stated, just undergo an epiphany” after a lifetime of democratic activism? You might recall the democratic testimonials from long term republicans who supported democrats but FERC and other records showed them to be long term democrats. Hint: google
No one is totally pure here. Maybe five years ago I gave the $50 MN refundable to an opponent of the
proposed Burnseville Amphitheater project. We stopped the project but this candidate lost. It was a favor to someone who lived there.
The St. Louis County (Duluth) delay is very confusing. They should have the same optical scan systems as Hennepin County, which works, and I am very familiar with.
One thing that confuses me is the 100% counted figure. What about absentee ballots? At the live polls or live absentee voting (I think) a ballot is rejected by the scanner so the person can try again. Thus, the questionable ballots are those from very low population areas and the absentee ballots. I promote absentee voting but warn people to take time to do it right because they don’t have the scanner reject option.
One thing I wonder is about the absentee ballots like mine. We have 100% percent of the precincts reporting. Absentee voting was heavy this year(I used it) and the election officials can’t open or count absentee ballots until after the polls close. They had a really long day, are they going to prolong it by opening up the absentee ballots? They are under double lock and key so they can sit there a day or more. I am specifically talking about the mail in absentee ballots like mine. These don’t have the scanner error check but I can’t believe they were all counted on the busy election night.
Let me give kudos to our more veteran election offacals. They do a great job that is usually boring but once in a while is critically important.
Public announcement here first. I started a new blog http://BarackTerm.comDon’t know what I will do with it in the future.
