California Conservative

This Strib article proves that this recount isn’t about a simple recount aimed at finding out the truth. This is proof that Al Franken will do anything to win this election. If attorneys are needed to intimidate people monitoring the recount, then that’s what they’ll apparently do.

The latest twist in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount came this morning, when the Al Franken campaign hit Ramsey County with a lawsuit, seeking the names of would-be voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.

The DFLer’s campaign hopes to force counties across the state to cough up the lists of rejected voters who, if later found eligible, could tip the balance in the closest Senate race in the country, between Franken and Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

The courts should reject this lawsuit immediately. There’s nothing more sacred than the right to casting a secret ballot. This would give Franken and the DFL the ability to intimidate voters. This isn’t shocking considering that Franken supports EFCA, which would give unions the right to intimidate workers into organizing a union.

The connection is that Franken isn’t the least bit hesitant to use strong-arm tactics because getting Franken elected is the only thing that matters to him and like-minded DFLers.

Franken Counsel Marc Elias even used this provocative verbiage to make his case:

“The only way we can ensure people were not disenfranchised is to check the lists,” Elias said.

This is fearmongering at its worst. Dictionary.com’s definition of disenfranchisement is straightforward:

to deprive of voting rights

What proof does Mr. Elias have that any voters were deprived of the right to vote? Will he supply the court and the Coleman campaign sworn affidavits of voters who were denied the right to vote? If he can’t provide those affidavits to the authorities, then his allegations are just that: allegations. In a court of law, unsubstantiated allegations are routinely ignored.

I’d further site the fact that criminal convictions that are based solely on unsubstantiated allegations are set aside, either by the trial judge or by the appellate court.

Let’s understand that incorrectly filling out a ballot isn’t disenfranchisement. Voters have the affirmative responsibility to fill their ballots out correctly. Overballots are routinely, and correctly, rejected because they weren’t filled out properly. Why should undervotes be treated differently than overvotes? Minnesota Election Law is exceptionally clear on filling out a ballot:

204C.13 RECEIVING AND MARKING BALLOTS.

Subd. 3. Marking ballots. The voter shall mark each ballot in the following manner:
(a) A mark (X) shall be placed in the square opposite the printed name of each candidate for whom the individual desires to vote, and in the square before the “YES” or “NO” if the individual desires to vote for or against a question.
(b) The voter may write in other names on the lines provided under the printed names of the candidates, except that no names shall be written in on primary ballots.
(c) At a state primary an individual may vote for candidates of only one major political party on the partisan primary ballot. If a partisan primary ballot contains votes for the candidates of more than one major political party, the ballot is totally defective and no vote on the ballot shall be counted.
(d) An individual who spoils a ballot may return it to the election judges and receive another.

Let’s summarize things:
1) The ballot is straightforward and easy to fill out correctly.
2) If people don’t want to vote for any of the candidates in the US Senate race, that’s their right.
3) The ballots in question are absentee ballots. Since the ballots in question were partially filled out, that means that these voters weren’t denied the right to vote. Therefore, these voters weren’t disenfranchised.
4) If these voters who voted absentee thought that they’d filled their ballots out incorrectly, they could’ve returned that ballot for a new ballot.(All “spoiled” ballots are immediately shredded to guarantee that they aren’t counted.

Based on this summarization, isn’t it fair to conclude that people whose ballots didn’t include a vote for Sen. Coleman, Al Franken or Dean Barkley chose to not vote for anyone in the US Senate race?

Technorati Tags: Recount, Al Franken, Marc Elias, Ballots, Overvotes, Undervotes, Civil Rights, Dean Barkley, Norm Coleman, Absentee Ballots, Disenfranchisement, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, Election 2008, Law, Liberals, Voter Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.