What does a "frivolous challenge" look like?
The buzz word on day one of Minnesota's Gubernatorial recount is "frivolous". Changes in state election law give election judges the power to label ballot challenges as "frivolous" which the recount rules from the State Canvassing Board define as:
"A challenge is frivolous if it is based upon an alleged identifying mark other than a signature or an identification number written anywhere on the ballot or a name written on the ballot completely outside of the space for the name of a write-in candidate. The absence of election judge initials on a ballot cannot be the basis of a challenge."
In Hennepin County Monday there were 150 frivolous challenges according to County Elections Manager Rachel Smith. 95% of those she said came from the Tom Emmer campaign. The Dayton campaign says that as of 2:30pm Monday there had been 226 frivolous challenges statewide. 221 of them were from the Emmer campaign. 107 of them were from the relatively small county of Renville.
So despite promises from Emmer's lawyer former Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson to avoid frivolous challenges, it appears the Emmer campaign has an itchy trigger finger for making them. Here are some examples of frivolous challenges from the Emmer campaign as provided by the Mark Dayton campaign.(PDF of the full ballots) You may need to look at the full ballot to decide if there were identifying marks as claimed by the Emmer campaign.
By the way, the statute that prohibits "identifying marks" dates back to the days when some folks were apparently paid to vote for a candidate and the way they proved it was by marking the ballot in a way that someone could tell they were the ones who voted for that candidate.
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Comments
This Makes Me Laugh
If the tables were turned, the Planet would take an entirely different point of view. It is clear by everything written here that you want Dayton to win and Emmer to lose. You care nothing about the truth or diversity of opinion, just your progressive agenda. Why don't you call yourselves The Progressive Daily Planet?
Sore losers can turn defeat into victory with enough delay
Anonymous---they're always anonymous---looks at a dozen obviously frivolous, utterly bogus challenges, and then accuses the Planet of"not caring about truth or diversity of opinion." Well you can always have diversity of opinion but you CAN'T have diversity about facts. It is or it ain't. And the truth is pretty clear here: the Emmer-lemmings are lodging lots of frivolous challenges, as a tactic to delay the decision until after Governor Pawlenty and the GOP majorities have re-written Minnesota statutes to their own satisfaction. Why don't you have the character to put your own name on your comments? I do.
Yes, it is laughable
The progressives are such hypocrites. Dayton would be doing exactly the same thing if he were in Emmer's shoes. The progressive-lemmings would justify doing the same thing by twisting the facts to fit their agenda. You have no regard for facts....the American people did not want Obamacare and you justified doing it anyway. Americans did not want to send more troups into Afghanistan and the progressive president did it anyway. The American people wanted to close down Guantanamo but our progressive president keeps it open. You got my name now, Oliver. What are you going to do about it?
laughable?
you can say dayton would do the same thing, but how do you really know? he isnt, so its kind of a moot point. what we do know is that emmers is being frivolous. we can see this by the ballot examples above. some of those votes were very obviously for dayton, so why the challenge? honestly, im curious. what is he trying to accomplish here? he clearly wasnt voted for on these particular ballots, so why take the time and effort to challenge something you know you wont win? perhaps oliver makes a good point. also, doesnt this whole situation seem familiar? do the names coleman and franken ring a bell?
as for obamacare, its being modeled after the universal healthcare in canada. and i wasnt aware they were communists up there. i am aware they thinkn us to be pretty silly down here. why wouldnt someone want guaranteed healthcare? we are already in the system, so whats the big deal?the idea of every child, mother, grandfather, everyone having a chance to have healthcare sounds good to me. whats your argument against that?
if people had regard for facts, they would know some instead of just saying " im sure they would do it too if the roles were reversed " guess what. the roles arent reversed right now, so please try to come with a better argument. perhaps something factual.
Repblicanss proving their
Repblicanss proving their points with imaginery scenarios that might happen like "This Makes Me Laugh" above is a tactic that speaks for itself. Stop. Think. Try again.
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