A post by Pat

A Minnesota appeals court ruled against five TV stations seeking to view the sealed and unused absentee ballots from the 2008 Franken-Coleman election. Sealed ballots are private data until opened by an election judge. The media group argued now that the election is over, the public is entitled to see those ballots.

Court: Media can’t see sealed absentee ballots from 2008 election

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled today that news media should not be allowed to look at absentee ballots that were sealed and never opened during the marathon vote recount during the 2008 U.S. Senate election won by Al Franken

The suit was filed by five television stations –KSTP-TV, KSTC-TV, WDIO-TV, KAAL-TV and KSAX-TV, in which they argued that once the election was over, the public was entitled to view the ballots. The ballots were in the possession of Ramsey County, and the stations said that the county could open the envelopes and separate out the ballots, which would then be copied and reviewed by the stations. That process would protect the identity of the voters, but allow the rejected ballots to be reviewed, the stations argued.

Because of the tight election between Franken, the Democrat, and the Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, the fate of the absentee ballots that were counted and not counted loomed large in the eventual decision by the state canvassing board and a three judge panel appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court which ultimately awarded the election victory to Franken in 2009.

Indeed, the election is over and the initial apparent loser is sitting in the Senate. Let’s see those ballots.

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4 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. thierry says:

    even if he did really win- which i highly doubt- Frankenrage will always be a loser- a big angry ball of hate that presides over senate meetings as a face pulling assclown. 6 years of his sad psychologically unbalanced malevolent buffoonery. what the hell is wrong with minnesota?

    “the fate of the absentee ballots that were counted and not counted loomed large in the eventual decision by the state canvassing board and a three judge panel appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court.”

    where is the outrage over the Evil Courts preempting the people’s vote? because if the election was thrown to coleman you know that’s what they would have been screaming.

    2008- everything that kept the founding fathers up at night pacing the floors.

  2. Maynard says:

    In the ballot recount events in my memory, it seems that every recount takes away votes from the Republican and gives them to the Democrat. This flipped the election in Washington state (that was perhaps legitimate) and Minnesota (this one reeks of a stolen election), and of course the infamous Florida recounts, which was tiptoeing toward flipping the election when the courts ended the process.

    Is this tilt toward Democrats a pattern, or is my memory selective?

    My general instinct is to trust the first count rather than the recounts. This is because the initial count may be less biased, in that nobody knows how close the count will be, so there’s less inclination to tamper with it when tampering is risky and probably unnecessary. However, there’s always an agenda behind the recounts, and a sense that there’s enough profit in cheating to make it worth the risk. Nor do I believe in these recounts by hand; I figure humans are more fallible than machines, not to mention more corrupt.

    • allblues says:

      Maynard, when the 1st recount in WA narrowed Rossi’s lead but still had him winning by 40 odd votes the next step for the Demoncrats was to request a hand recount, the last chance to steal the election. I wrote down a number that I predicted Gregoire would win by. As I recall it was 192. My predictive powers failed as she ended up winning by 129. This was by any objective measure a bigger travesty than the “stolen” 2000 election, except that the liberals won this one.
      Re the Florida recount. Liberals still whine about the “stolen” election but the proper question to ask is: Just imagine exactly the same scenario in Fla. but merely switch Gore and Bush. Gore is “selected not elected.” Would liberals still be complaining 10 years later about the illegitimate presidency of Al Gore? Silly question of course.

  3. bachmann2012 says:

    Maynard, original counts are usually right–except in this case. Not only was there this case of unopened ballots, but the election board counted numerous Franken votes found in the trunks of cars. I believe Coleman actually won.

    Despite his RINO status and TARP support (which combined with Franken’s opposition to TARP gave Franken a chance in this race), Coleman would not have voted for Obamacare and it would have gone down in the Senate. This race had serious consequences.

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