READER COMMENTS ON

"Debunked: Republican's '32 Franken Ballots in a Car' Story is Complete Nonsense, Never Happened"

(27 Responses so far...)





COMMENT #1 [Permalink]

... David Brauer said on 11/13/2008 @ 7:58 pm PT...





Hi Brad - thanks for the linkage and getting the word out. One small correction - I write for MinnPost.com. Although we're located in Minneapolis, I think we're shooting for all of Minnesota with our name. So it's not the Minneapolis Post. Small, small thing, but it helps with those Google searches. Best,

David [ed note: Thanks, David. I fixed it in Brad's post for you. Sorry. --99]

COMMENT #2 [Permalink]

... Big Dan said on 11/13/2008 @ 9:33 pm PT...





Al Franken wants a lawsuit to look into the absentee ballots that weren't counted, but Coleman-R's campaign manager wants to "help" these absentee voters who's votes weren't counted...by not counting them! He's "helping" them: "Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said the court should reject the lawsuit to protect the privacy of voters and to keep invalid ballots from influencing the outcome. http://hosted.ap.org/dyn...OME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

COMMENT #3 [Permalink]

... Big Dan said on 11/13/2008 @ 9:41 pm PT...





He doesn't want their votes to count to "protect them"! He's on their side!

COMMENT #4 [Permalink]

... TEDEGER said on 11/13/2008 @ 9:58 pm PT...





In my opinion, for what it is worth, the State that chose Wellstone would be far better represented by Franken than Coleman. The GOP is out to steal another, by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE, and must be brought up short. An HONEST count is what is needed, and if it's Coleman - well, after all, MN DID elect Ventura Governor!

COMMENT #5 [Permalink]

... karen said on 11/13/2008 @ 10:15 pm PT...





To Brad, Heller, and Bauer: Thanks for some investigative reporting on this,what a novel idea, someone actually picked up the phone and talked to someone, and got a real story. So the MN Sec of State ballot stuffing alleged by Fox actually consisted of: double-sealed ballots whose whereabouts were always known and were not away from city hall more than 1 hour, that ended up netting Franken 9 votes, consistent with voting precentages in Mpls!? Boy with examples like that of Election Fraud, how can we go on, surely our election system cannot be this bad!? how can I go on trusting our Democracy?! Based on this, it is obvious the only way Dems ever got control of our Congress and Exec branch was by stealing it, I can conclude nothing else! And our two local print daily newspapers have not even de-bunked this Fox/WSJ version of this national story by doing what Bauer did, picking up the phone and talking to the eye-witnesses. Heaven forbid they take the additional step of interviewing some of the Republican and Indepent poll-workers invovled in transporting these ballots election night as credible witnesses about what happened election night. Just think of all the crazy stuff we have seen in elections over the last 8 years, and finally election integrity makes it on Fox News over: paper ballots that can actually be visibly secured, observed and counting in front of witnesses, ballots that were handled in a legal manner consistent with State law, were tracked in proper chain-of-custody, were only unsecured in the cars for less than one hour, were double-sealed and only opened when counted, and once counted, the results of the counting yielding 18 votes for Franken, 7 for Coleman and the rest for other candidates or none, totally consistent with voting patterns in that district matched, so netting a whopping total 9 votes for the Dem candidate - its pretty damn funny this is most Fox news can find to rag on the MN rigging of the election, funny if it wasn't so sad and hypocritical. Something that also seems worth exploring, the Coleman lawsuit to stop the counting of these filed last Saturday was, I believed, filed in Ramsey County, a strange jurisdiction to sue given the ballots in question were from Mpls precincts, which is in Hennepin County. Of course the suit was dismissed on the basis of no standing. So the legal action seemed like it was purposefully doomed for failure but allowed them to mis-state the story of these ballots and create a show by going to court to stop the count rather than really attempting real legal action to secure the vote counting. Personally as MN resident, I would perfer that the State require the ballots be stored and transported in hardened boxes like hard plastic bins or steel boxes with tamper-proof seals, so when they are being stored upon arrival in the mail and when they are driven to precints, they are much less likely to be tampered with. A one time investment in such ballot boxes (maybe 400-500 needed in each of the bigger counties) and the small cost of tamper-proof seals for every election seem like super cheap way to better insure the integrity of our elections. But really, Fox, this is all you got, this is the best that your national org can come up with on the MN election, re-freakin-diculous. Brad, you should point this out to the Fox newsy that interviewed you before the election and seemed so proud they were being fair and balanced. Maybe you can goad her into investigating the Alaska, like the memory cards that showed evidence of being changed just before they were released to a FOIA request.

COMMENT #6 [Permalink]

... Phil said on 11/14/2008 @ 12:34 am PT...





I might as well pile it on "The Journal." I love how the WSJ's feedback pages demand you use a real name, while their own moderator uses an acronym e.g. "WSJonline" I'd have to say the way it's setup is "propaganda generator mode." I tried to comment I was greeted with a message that the topic was now locked. How Convenient. Print lies, and turn off comments. Neat, no wonder there's no oversight of the economy.

COMMENT #7 [Permalink]

... Perry Logan said on 11/14/2008 @ 3:45 am PT...





It's amazing how the Republicans are getting interested in election fraud, now that it's stopped working for them. I can't believe they're dumb enough to bring it up, though.

COMMENT #8 [Permalink]

... molly said on 11/14/2008 @ 4:33 am PT...





Repubs. are fighting hard for those 3 senate seats aren't they? Since the fraud has been going on for so long.... more and more of US know that our election system is broken. Hard to pull off the propaganda. Esp. in Alaska where the '04 election was stolen in such a clumsy fashion the records could never be turned over to the public.Now Alaska is being openly mocked...that has to hurt. Maybe the old military maneuver "Don't shoot 'till you see the whites of their eyes" is working.

COMMENT #9 [Permalink]

... rollotomasi said on 11/14/2008 @ 5:28 am PT...





Odd how the Republicans are focusing on Minnesota, not Alaska, which seems to have far greater election control problems. Hmmm, wonder why that is.

COMMENT #10 [Permalink]

... lolwat said on 11/14/2008 @ 9:50 am PT...





It's amazing how bias this story is. Also liberals a nutjobs and will probably steal this senate seat

COMMENT #11 [Permalink]

... SandyD said on 11/14/2008 @ 10:53 am PT...





LOLWAT: Did you grow up in a Republican city that refused to spend sufficient funds for education? You appear incapable of correctly writing two simple declarative sentences.

COMMENT #12 [Permalink]

... Chris Hooten@work said on 11/14/2008 @ 10:55 am PT...





Pardon me, LOLWAT, but was that English? Only stupid people don't fact check FOX news. They have been shown to be misleading and/or lying repeatedly, and without retractions, even when proven wrong. Much of right-wing radio has the same problem. Studies have shown that the least informed, and most misinformed people are the ones that get their information from right-wing talk radio. (Remember Limbaugh recently tried to call the current recession an "Obama recession," and tried to blame it on him, which is absolutely ridiculous, as are assertions of him chumming it up with terrorists, or being a Marxist, socialist, or communist) Of course, if someone never fact checks using multiple reliable sources, they would never know that, would they? After all, it sounds good, it must be true. The rest of the media does not have a "liberal" bias, but a "truth" bias which runs against the grain of the mis-informing right-wing media outlets. I guess to sum it all up, you are completely wrong, LOLWAT, about who, exactly, are the nutjobs.

COMMENT #13 [Permalink]

... Floridiot said on 11/14/2008 @ 11:22 am PT...





Take it easy on him, it's hard enough for him to type with one finger in his nose and slippery keys from all of the drool

COMMENT #14 [Permalink]

... Soul Rebel said on 11/14/2008 @ 11:47 am PT...





LOLWAT even misspelled his own name. It should have been LO-WATT. Man, these guys make it too easy sometimes.

COMMENT #15 [Permalink]

... David Anderer said on 11/14/2008 @ 12:04 pm PT...





As far as who is stealing votes, Rove says the Barack Obama victory was just a little better than "W". No big deal he says. Way over exaggerated he says. The Republicans put a lot of time, money and effort into voter suppression all over the USA, we know that is a fact. If all those who were legally allowed to vote and were stopped by the Republicans who were able to vote what would the total have been in a fair and free election? My speculation on this is the follows. We know they work with small percentages from multiple sites and states believing that the election will be close and that 5 or 10% suppression will cover their deficit in the voting booth. I think it not impossible that in a fair and honest election Obama would have won by 16,000,000 votes. Brad can you look into to that possibility and shut up Rove and all those who somehow believe their propaganda?

COMMENT #16 [Permalink]

... GWN said on 11/14/2008 @ 8:31 pm PT...





David @ 15 TruthIsAll who sometimes comments here, also feels Obama probably won by a much larger margin.



TruthIsAll

COMMENT #17 [Permalink]

... Walk Softly said on 11/15/2008 @ 7:01 am PT...





According to Brauer's article, or is this an opinion piece:

OK, so were the ballots ever in a car? Yes. But stow the outrage until you hear the details. Stow the outrage. Umm say what. The real story is even more outrage-provoking. And it all needs further investigation, not editorializing there's much ado about nothing. A precinct shut down earlier than the legal closing time? Was the judge in that precinct tallying paper ballots before the polls closed? Isn't that disenfranchisement? Federal law requires polls to be open until the state's required close of polls. This keeping the polls open until every last voter who arrived on time, or was in line at the time of close of polls - was so well known nationwide because everybody everywhere in every state expected some 70% to 80% voter turnout, no matter the tiny or large district. Yet, some polls in Minnesota closed before the publicly announced close of polls deadline including one where it just so happened military (according to the story) absentees had not yet made it to the precinct by 7:30 pm, and were within minutes of being delivered to the polling site? What doesn't smell about that Mr. Brauer? Should anyone have come in a couple of minutes before closing time and be standing in line, or the only one, not standing in a line, that person or persons are enabled to vote at the precinct. This could even include somebody who had potentially submitted a non-military absentee ballot. One presumes the military absentees could arrive even after the election day deadline because those are basically under 'federal' jurisdiction and are given a few day leeway as long as they're postmarked with the correct deadline date. At any rate, maybe a voter wasn't sure the absentee ballot made it on time and they were back in the precinct. Most states have laws requiring the voter in that case show up at the polls, void the absentee, and vote in the precinct. But this polling place closed early? Where on earth are the election integrity people on the disenfranchisement issue here? The story needs further investigation. Who challenges absentee ballot electors? election officials? Not in other states, political party pollwatchers at the precinct have that privilege. Where are the election integrity people on the issue election officials can challenge the absentees? None of the story sounds right if absentee paper ballots did not make it to the precinct for whatever reason. It's not like judges and drivers do not have cell phone communication. Hey we're running a bit late for our delivery of your additional absentee ballots. Hey, we're right outside the door and see you've closed the doors, open up so we can deliver these. So what the ballots weren't actually in the judge's car, having never arrived at the precinct. They were obviously in somebody's car for some amount of time. Potentially enough time for anything to happen. All because the poll closed down early? Judges of election can close a poll down early because nobody is coming in the last hour for voting? Ridiculous. Needs investigated, not swept away as a rumor. Brauer should also review particulars of this statement as fact: City Hall staff checks the outer envelope to assure registration validity. If these are military absentees and citizens living abroad, and anyone of them were with-held as being valid voters, or proper postmarking, etc. somebody better investigate how those were handled. Where are the election integrity people on that one? More potential disenfranchisement by election officials who are jury and judge all outside the view of the public. For shame. [ed note: Blockquote inserted for clarity. I've read the piece two times now, and I don't see where it says a polling place closed early. --99]

COMMENT #18 [Permalink]

... Lora said on 11/15/2008 @ 12:38 pm PT...





Walk Softly (#17), I don't know where your allegations come from, but I cannot find them in Brauer's article linked above. I cannot find anywhere that says that any of the precincts were closed "earlier than the legal closing time." From the article (emphasis mine): Driving the ballots

The drivers went out about 7:30 p.m. Reichert soon heard from some who were worried they might not get to every precinct before closing. Once a precinct judge removes a tallying machine memory card, votes can no longer be counted there. Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. Some less-busy sites shut down before the drivers got there. Nowhere does it say that the precincts shut down before the legal closing time. Walk Softly writes: None of the story sounds right if absentee paper ballots did not make it to the precinct for whatever reason. It's not like judges and drivers do not have cell phone communication. Hey we're running a bit late for our delivery of your additional absentee ballots. Hey, we're right outside the door and see you've closed the doors, open up so we can deliver these. As you can see, the message to keep the precincts open DID go out: Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. There is no evidence that any of the precincts closed early. An alternative and entirely plausible explanation is that some precincts closed on time, and others closed later. Walk Softly writes: If these are military absentees and citizens living abroad, and anyone of them were with-held as being valid voters, or proper postmarking, etc. somebody better investigate how those were handled. Where are the election integrity people on that one? More potential disenfranchisement by election officials who are jury and judge all outside the view of the public. From the article: In the end, Franken claimed 18 of the 32 votes and Coleman got seven. The rest were non-votes or for other candidates. I don't see any evidence whatever that any of the absentee ballot voters were disenfranchised. No mention of any postmarks or registrations being amiss. This is a non-issue in this case. "For shame." Yes, it's a shame to make unfounded allegations.

COMMENT #19 [Permalink]

... truthisall said on 11/15/2008 @ 7:38 pm PT...





Why the 2008 Recorded Vote confirms that the 2004 Election was Stolen http://www.geocities.com...culator2008VoteMatch.htm TruthIsAll [ed note: Please read our commenting rules. --99]

COMMENT #20 [Permalink]

... truthisall said on 11/15/2008 @ 7:40 pm PT...





Late and Uncounted Votes: Statistical Anomalies in the 2000, 2004, 2008 Elections http://www.geocities.com...el/2008StatAnomalies.htm TruthIsAll [ed note: Please read our commenting rules. --99]

COMMENT #21 [Permalink]

... truthisall said on 11/15/2008 @ 7:45 pm PT...





2008 Landslide Denied: Uncounted Votes and the Final National Exit Poll TruthIsAll Nov. 12, 2008 http://www.geocities.com...nmodel/Uncounted2008.htm With almost 100% of precincts reporting, the latest election results show Obama leading by 8.4m votes with a total of 126.5m recorded. That’s a solid mandate, but his True Vote was better than that. The tremendous GOTV and new registration effort has not resulted in the expected increase in the recorded vote from 2004. Remember the 17m net increase from 2000 to 2004 (105m to 122m)? The media should be asking the questions. Why is the recorded count at 126.5m, when a 140m+ turnout was forecast? How many voters were told they had to complete provisional ballots? [ed note: Please read our commenting rules. --99]

COMMENT #22 [Permalink]

... Walk Softly said on 11/16/2008 @ 10:27 am PT...





Lora

Your comments are welcome. My comments were designed to draw some reaction from this gang because Brauer's article appears not to have drawn outrage to itself as it should have. Just as Brad's headline and comments are designed for a specific purpose and obviously just as Brauer's piece is designed to dismiss 'outrage' as unjustified, my comments were designed to get somebody to read all of what is being written. It seems to me that anybody reading Brauer's piece, anybody who is truly interested in election integrity would not stand for being told to stow the outrage. The article does not clearly specify whether the polls (those being ones which were to receive absentees) closed down early, exactly on time, or later than the legal closing time. That info is not specified. [ed note: And needn't be. If you feel so strongly about this, poll the poll workers and write your own article. --99] this is precisely what made me think to include such a charge of closing down before the legal time. Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. Some less-busy sites shut down before the drivers got there. [ed note: Pretty obvious she meant she sent a mass email or text message to all the polling sites, asking that they not leave until the drivers got there... which has nothing to do with a polling place closing early or late. They would close on time. She wanted the poll workers to stay to receive the drivers. --99]



From that, we don't know what sites were less busy and had shut down before the drivers got there. We don't know whether less busy sites may have closed down slightly earlier than closing time. From the article we just don't know what a comment about less-busy sites means. [ed note: The article does not assume such crazy things, and so wouldn't report them. --99]

What does a less busy site have to do with a prescheduled legal closing of polls time? Nothing. so that's what led me to think about a precinct possibly starting the close down process early. Not expecting any absentees, or not being apprised some hours before such might be arriving, a precinct may begin the process of closing down five or even a couple of minutes earlier and that is simply not out of the realm of possibility. But we don't know, because the reporter did not reveal anything precisely enough to have that potential dismissed as out of hand. Again, the term less-busy was used by an official and that prompted the conjecture. There is so much we are not made aware of by the piece and that is why the reporter's advice for us to stow the outrage is an outrage in itself. The article also does not state precisely how many precincts were to be contacted to await delivery of some portion of 32 military/overseas ballots. Nobody has clarified how many precincts were ones where some amount of the 32 ballots were to be delivered. Thus we don't know from the article how many were to be notified by a broadcast to remain open. Surely not an amount greater than 32. How many, 6? 10? 15? 4? The author does say 4 ballots made it to precinct/s but doesn't say if those 4 ballots were delivered to one precinct or 4 precincts or two precincts each receiving 2 ballots, or anything more about them other than they were "accidentally uncounted" that night. According to the reporter's own words, the reporter acknowledges the 32 absentees were in some officials' car/s - those being "Precinct Support Judge/s." A lot of particulars are not detailed. How was the message to keep polls open broadcast? Broadcast means something different than phone calls were attempted to be made. Doesn't broadcast imply radio communication? Were two-way radios supplied and were they in working order or not? [ed note:

broadcast |ˈbrôdˌkast|

verb ( past -cast or -casted ; past part. -cast or -casted) [ trans. ]

1 (often be broadcast) transmit (a program or some information) by radio or television : the announcement was broadcast live | [as n. ] ( broadcasting) the 1920s saw the dawn of broadcasting.

• [ intrans. ] take part in a radio or television transmission : the station broadcasts 24 hours a day.

• tell (something) to many people; make widely known : we don't want to broadcast our unhappiness to the world.

2 scatter (seeds) by hand or machine rather than placing in drills or rows. See note at scatter . That seems fairly clear. --99] As to whether any absentees were disenfranchised. We have not been given any figure for how many military/overseas absentees might have been disqualified before the 32 absentees (ok'd to be processed at the precinct level according to election law) were sent out for delivery to the precincts. You surely have no basis to say this:

I don't see any evidence whatever that any of the absentee ballot voters were disenfranchised. No mention of any postmarks or registrations being amiss. This is a non-issue in this case. Just because the reporter didn't mention or state such doesn't mean there is not any evidence for such. That's the point of what I wrote, to get all to rethink being told to "stow the outrage." Maybe I'm being provocative as well to note I don't see a Lora response to any but my post at this point and so I note you're calling me out on what I wrote, but not questioning the lack of information in the article and similar lack of information and curiosity by Bradblog. There's still opportunity for such all around so I'll make no definitive preconceived judgement. [ed note: No. You are being obtuse and demanding we pay for it. Lora can respond to other commenters as the whim strikes her. Please read my comment below about our position on posting knowing disinformation. --99]

COMMENT #23 [Permalink]

... Walk Softly said on 11/16/2008 @ 11:06 am PT...





Truthisall,

The reason for the disparity in projected turnout may be due to inflated and bloated precinct/county/state voter registration databases which more often than not include names of deceased and electors who have changed address to an out of state one but not notified the former precinct of a residency change.

COMMENT #24 [Permalink]

... Agent 99 said on 11/16/2008 @ 12:57 pm PT...





Walk Softly Your comments won't be welcome if you play games like that. People will read or not read the material at links, according to their own whim, desire, or allocation of time. Posting knowing disinformation will get you banned from Brad Blog. I, for one, resent being made to reread the article and to try to make sense out of your long comment, at all, but really even more when I am pushed for time, but need to waste it on that stuff. Then you had the nerve to end it with "for shame"? You've expressed your dissatisfaction with the article, and with our failure to be curious about points we understood and you didn't, at length. You can agree or disagree or discuss points with people all you want, but posting disinformation, even when you feel it's for a good cause, is not just against the rules, it's rude and pernicious. Frankly, it looks more to me as though you mistakenly thought you found something to pitch a fit about and pitched your fit, and instead of just coming back and saying you were sorry, that you misread, you made up an excuse so you could keep on picking at the piece and the commenters who respond to you. Seriously, you will be banned if you do something like that again.

COMMENT #25 [Permalink]

... Walk Softly said on 11/16/2008 @ 1:53 pm PT...





Agent 99. What DISinformation have I given? My posting that some precincts could have closed down earlier than the legal closing time was speculation. My offense was showing that speculation was possible, that is, some precincts could have closed early, based on as explained in the subsequent post, officials use of the term "less-busy" precincts. It's still a potential that some precincts closed early, those being less busy. Would it matter if some closed 5 minutes early? It might have mattered if that precinct received notice (broadcast) of absentees about to be delivered. It's speculation from the contents of the article. We don't know from anything in the article specifically either how a message was 'broadcast' to the affected precincts, nor do we know how many should have had the absentees delivered. So my comments raising questions are speculation not disinformation. Such as presenting the possibility there were other than 32 military/overseas absentee ballots and among those might have been disqualifications. I don't understand how the charge can be brought that what I wrote was disinformation. Maybe the style wasn't adequate, but I think it an unfair charge you've made.

COMMENT #26 [Permalink]

... Lora said on 11/16/2008 @ 3:46 pm PT...





Dear Walk Softly, I believe Agent 99 was perfectly clear. In case you are genuinely confused about what is disinformation and what is speculation: In your first post (comment # 17) you go on at length --- several sentences --- about how wrong it would be that some polls closed early. Many of your "questions" read exactly like statements but for the question mark. There is NO evidence that I've seen that these polling places closed early --- yet you go on and on about the damage done because they did question-mark. Nowhere did you say you were speculating as to what might have happened if the polls had closed early. You are implying without any back-up that they did close early and damage that may have been done because of it (disinformation). [Walk Softly:] You surely have no basis to say this: [Lora:]I don't see any evidence whatever that any of the absentee ballot voters were disenfranchised. No mention of any postmarks or registrations being amiss. This is a non-issue in this case. [Walk Softly:]Just because the reporter didn't mention or state such doesn't mean there is not any evidence for such. As I said, I don't see any evidence for this. If there is any, feel free to quote and link. But when you go on at length about how poorly the validation of the ballots may have been handled and suggest that the election integrity folks are amiss for not being on top of that, again you are in the realm of making stuff up, not speculation.

COMMENT #27 [Permalink]

... Paul Allen said on 11/18/2008 @ 11:27 pm PT...

