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UPDATE (11/26/08): The MN Canvassing Board has ruled that the 12,000 or so rejected absentee ballots will not be recounted. Let the circus begin.

Remember the election that happened three weeks ago?

It’s still happening in Minnesota.

As of 8PM yesterday, Coleman held a lead of about 213 votes in the current recount. The woman in the picture above is reacting to news that her table would need to count the ballots again…the ballots they had just finished recounting. Approximately 18% of the total ballots still need to be recounted and then Minnesota elections officials get to deal with all the ballots challenged by the candidates. Right now, the number of challenged ballots stands at nearly 4,000.

Hopefully, elections officials are going to pause things for a bit following work on Wednesday and let all these people eat some turkey, because pending the outcome of today’s meeting of the Minnesota Canvassing Board, things are about to get a lot worse.

At issue are thousands of absentee ballots that were rejected for a variety of reasons, many of which are likely to be found erroneous after further legal review. If the board decides to allow the absentee ballots to be counted, expect a firestorm of controversy of epic proportions. You’ll also be able to add the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race to the list of elections full of unbelievable twists, legal battles and drama.

Millions of tax-payer dollars spent on elections, a months-long recount process, the likely upcoming court battles, and the potential for a seat from Minnesota to sit vacant in the U.S. Senate for months while this is all sorted out. All to end in, what is likely to continually be, a disputed outcome. Even if the recount returns results similar to those of Election Day, the U.S. Senate could throw another wrench in the works:

If the strategy of adding previously rejected ballots to the Minnesota Senate recount is successful, a final outcome could be months away. In 1975, the U.S. Senate refused to accept New Hampshire’s certification that Republican Louis Wyman had won by two votes. The seat was vacant for seven months, with the Senate debate spanning 100 hours and six unsuccessful attempts to break a filibuster and vote on who should be seated. The impasse ended only when a special election was agreed to, which was won by Democrat John Durkin.

Democracy is alive and well in our country…unless you count the whole voting thing.

–Gordy

Election coleman, Election, franken, minnesota, senate, Voting

No, Alaska is still NOT done counting the ballots. The good news is, however, Begich has won.

Begich leads Stevens by more than 3,700 votes, according to the Alaska secretary of state. Gail Fenumiai, the head of the state’s election division, said about 2,500 absentee votes from overseas and Alaska’s most remote regions remain to be counted.

The Democrat’s lead thus far — 47.8 percent to 46.6 percent — puts him beyond the margin of victory that would allow Stevens to call for a state-funded recount of the ballots.

I know Alaska is a big state and there are registered voters living in very remote areas where absentee ballots need to be flown in by plane. We’re now two weeks past Election Day, however. I’ll give them 4-5 days for bad weather, but 14 days? Come on. Multnomah County here in Portland, OR counted 366,498 in just two days…over 40,000 more than were cast in the entire state of Alaska.

So, unless Stevens pulls within 0.5% once the final 2,500 ballots are counted (by Christmas?), which would trigger an automatic recount, his 40 year career in the U.S. Senate is over. I know at least one blogger and two friends in Alaska who couldn’t be happier.

That leaves only Minnesota and Georgia left undecided.

In Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman finished 206 votes ahead of Democratic challenger, Al Franken. A recount of the 2.9 million ballots cast began yesterday and should be completed by next week.

In Georgia, racist Republican incumbent, Saxby Chambliss, was up by 110,000 votes over Democrat Jim Martin. Chambliss’ numbers, however, did not reach more than 50% as required by state law, so there will be a “do over”…err, runoff…election held on December 2nd.

John Stewart covered the three remaining Senate races most excellently on The Daily Show yesterday:

Note to John: Dude, it’s pronounced “Wampa“, not “Wampass”. Um, now I’ve probably said too much.

By the way, by stating in the title of this post that the Democrats now have 58 seats, I’m including the two Independents who caucus with the Dems: Bernie Sanders of Vermont and piece of shit, back-stabbing, traitor-of-convenience, whining, sniveling, ass-faced Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

–Gordy

Election alaska, Election, senate, stevens, Voting

In case anyone’s excitement over Obama’s win has faded at all, you need to watch this video. It is simply awesome. I saw the crowd celebrating in Grant Park that night, but it’s so much more exciting watching it from the viewpoint of someone in the crowd. Thanks to Laura W. for passing it along.

–Gordy

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Believe it or not, last Tuesday’s election still isn’t over. Democrat Mark Begich is now ahead of convicted Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska. They’re still counting the absentee ballots, but Begich has now pulled out in front by almost 900 votes. While that may be shocking news in and of itself, the question I want to ask is: How the hell are they STILL counting votes in Alaska?

Seriously, the entire state has only 490,656 registered voters. Granted, that’s an increase from previous elections, but not an overwhelming one. Then, of course, there’s the fact that only 45.2% of registered voters in Alaska actually cast a ballot in this election. That, more than one week later, a state is still counting ballots for a seat in the U.S. Senate only further illustrates what I’ve already said before: It’s time to reform and/or replace the election system in this country.

A few days before the election, the polls showed Begich out in front of Stevens. Initial ballot counts on Election Day seemed to contradict this, however, with Stevens building a solid lead. In addition, it looks like there might be some voting irregularities in Anchorage. Trouble in Palin’s backyard? I thought she had gotten all mavericky on the situation up there and cleaned things up?

And could someone please tell me again how Stevens is able to hold his job after being convicted of crimes?

–Gordy

Election alaska, Election, senate, stevens, Voting

The Republicans received a smackdown of epic proportions on Tuesday and, with as many as three Senate seats likely headed for recount, things may yet get worse. Still, after the last two elections being chock full of voter suppression and intimidation, corrupted e-voting machines, voter suppression and counting irregularities, it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to read pieces like this from the ultra-conservative rag, The American Spectator.

The conspiracy theory panic in the article begins:

We received a note that there was a possibility that Multnomah County’s election offices were flooded and that the “press was being asked to leave.” It sounded sketchy, so I called to check it out.

OMG, the Oregon Democrats made it pour down rain in November to intentionally flood the Multnomah County election offices so they could cheat their way to a Merkley win!

Or…maybe not:

According to Shawn Cunningham in their public affairs office, no press has been asked to leave whatsoever. There’s a little bit of water in the basement, “the building was built in 1925,” and they needed to move the ballots, which the press is welcome to bear witness to. He says that there are observers watching this process closely. I haven’t yet checked in with GOP or DNC observers, but that’s the word so far.

Did they seriously think Smith had a chance to win in Multnomah County? Talk about grasping at straws. Gordon Smith used to be a fairly decent guy, on par with the old John McCain in terms of being not too far right of center, and generally working well with both sides to keep things moving forward. Things really started to come undone for Smith, however, when the Willamette Week exposed his hypocrisy regarding illegal immigration, allegations he adamantly denied in an interview with right-wing hack Lars Larson during which he called the report a “hatchet-job”, egging WWeek into returning to Eastern Oregon and getting not one, but 5 undocumented workers who were or had been employed by Smith Frozen Foods to go on record. In response to this second story:

“I think this means trouble for Gordon Smith,” says KXL’s conservative talk-show host Lars Larson, who’s usually in Republicans’ corner but is a critic of Smith on this issue. “If it turns out he has employed people illegally when he has claimed he has not, that’s a problem.”

But back to the American Spectator article for a minute. After it was written, and the reporter followed up via phone with Multnomah County Elections officials, he later updated the page with the following:

UPDATE: Does anyone know anyone who’s actually observing here?

Seriously? Smith had an initial lead on Election Day and several hours into the following day because all of the rural counties had counted 100% of their ballots. Those counties, unsurprisingly, lean heavily Republican. Once Lane and Multnomah counties, which are much more populated, started to catch up in the ballot counting, however, Merkley shot right past Smith. Anyone who was watching the local TV broadcasts Tuesday night could see, both in his facial expressions and body language, that Smith knew his lead wasn’t large enough to overcome the inevitability of the Multnomah County vote. Political analyst, Tim Hibbits, said as much Wednesday morning when, in spite of Smith currently leading, he was standing by his projection of a Merkley win.

Not to be outdone, the Republicans in Minnesota are already starting to suggest foul play in the Coleman/Franken race as well.

Maybe now Republicans will be more open to the idea of reforming the voting process in our country. I’ve already put forth an idea as to how we can begin to fix this. It’s time to set aside differences and combine forces to find a solution once and for all. Without a joint effort, every election is always going to be viewed as flawed by one side or the other, with someone feeling cheated.

Then again, maybe that’s been the point all along.

–Gordy

Election coleman, Election, franken, gordon smith, minnesota, oregon, senate, Voting

Not that he ever really had one, but whatever was there is now effectively gone forever.

I didn’t catch this Tuesday night and, after watching it, am glad that I didn’t. Thanks to Bob V for passing this along and to…gulp…Fox News for airing the interview and commenting on it the way they did.

–Gordy

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Who said acting like children was a bad thing? Maybe if more of us followed their lead things would not be so deep in the hole right now.

I don’t know who the photographer responsible for these picture is, so if you know, please pass along contact info so I can give them proper credit.

–Gordy

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I’d put down some thoughts here about the content of this report, but words cannot do it justice.

There’s a great version of the interview above over at Huffington Post where Carl Cameron gives pretty much the same report on The O’Reilly Factor. In that version, Bill O’Reilly looks completely defeated, but continues (albeit weakly) to attempt to defend Palin.

America, we dodged a bullet yesterday.

–Gordy

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The title of this post will make sense (in a somewhat sad way) a couple minutes into this video.

John McCain made a very gracious concession speech last night, where he tried to pull people back to reality to support the new president-elect. I applaud him for his sincerity and chosen words. It really was a good speech and maybe, just for a minute, I felt a little bit sorry for him.

Obama definitely has a long road ahead of him. Priority number one needs to be to bring more of the country closer together. He can start with the two McCaniacs in the crowd during McCain’s speech shown later in this video.

Thanks to Garrison for passing it along.

–Gordy

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President-elect Barack Obama!

ABC New is the first to call it.

Update: CNN and NBC/MSNBC just followed suit.

If it holds true, can John McCain and Sarah Palin now diffuse all the hatred and ugliness they’ve let build over the past couple of months?

–Gordy

Election Election, obama, president