Just Curious – Coleman Franken Recount Question
I sent a note to someone this week asking a question about the Coleman – Franken recount and never heard back, so I am going to throw it out to the RF readership.
In the saga of the recount, wasn’t it only when Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (ACORN) allowed the Canvassing board to add in previously rejected absentee ballots, that Al Franekn took a lead? Before that, Sen. Coleman had been ahead n the count of the actual ballots cast and counted on election night, if my memory serves.
It is an important point and I’d like some help in clarifying it.
It matters because the absentee ballots were not uniformly reviewed and sure seem to be unequally scrutinized by campaign workers, volunteers, and lawyers. It wasn’t something that was done in a way that every single ballot was treated equally, as Federal law requires. It also exposes how Mark Ritchie did in fact abuse his power to help a pal and steal this election.
If anyone can help correct my memory that would be great.










Bofore any absentee votes were added, Franken was up by 50 votes. Ritchie was a member of the Canvass Board but did not direct it.
Ah yes, but that includes the duplicate ballots.
That was not your question. Your question was whether Ritchie’s actions on absentees had put Franken in the lead. The answer to that question is no. The question of cherry picked precincts with possible duplicates were only proposed after the Coleman challenged canvass board results was only raised later.
It was a question based on the entire process. You know, an election. Oh wait, it doesn’t appear you do.
Anyways, if you subtract the selective absentee ballots, the duplicate ballots, then we would have a somewhat clear picture of a recount…..
I say somewhat, because people got to play the Challenge game and in doing so flip votes. Personally, a better way to “recount” would have been to run all the ballots a second time. This would have documented the accuracy of the original count and if 500 votes did or did not get mistakingly added or subtracted in the Iron Range.
A machine recount, or repeat of election day, would have gotten us much closer to a real picture of what happened at the real ballot box. Since we never truly verified all the ballot counts statewide, we don’t know what really happened.
Instead we got some people maybe pulling funny business. A bunch of partisans allowed to decide the “intent”. Some counties deciding to add ballots. And some places “finding” ballots, while others never did.
So we don’t know what really happened on election night. Mark Ritchie made sure of that. Rejected ballots were narrowly applied, after the fact. That was for a contention, not a recount. To me that throws the whole ordeal out of legitimacy and impartiality. Sure, maybe had Ritchie ordered a recheck of each and every single absentee ballot, maybe we could know, but he didn’t so we don’t.
Add to that how easy it is to get an absentee ballot……
And well, we don’t have an election system, we have a process open to interpretation. To me, that is not the way the Founders intended and frankly, is unDemocratic.
How did your extremely specific question, “In the saga of the recount, wasn’t it only when Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (ACORN) allowed the Canvassing board to add in previously rejected absentee ballots, that Al Franekn (sic) took a lead?”, suddenly become “a question based on the entire process”? I answered your specific question. Franken was ahead in the canvas board count before any absentees were added. Your larger theme is not my concern.