Thursday, November 06, 2008

Things just keep getting curioser and curioser

We have a recount situation here in Minnesota. The morning after election night, Senator Norm Coleman (R) was leading challenger Al Franken (D) by just over 700 votes. As of this posting, the gap has narrowed to 236. State law calls for an automatic recount when the difference is less than 0.5%. It is only fair to the voters. But Coleman was declaring himself the victor, and calling for Franken to waive his right to a recount, saying it would cost the taxpayers money.

Am I the only one who smells something fishy here? If the margin were in Franken's favor, would Coleman be so quick to concede? I doubt it. And the fact that the margin has shrunk by about 500 votes, even before the official recount, is interesting.

Who says my vote doesn't count?

Sorry, I'll get back to normal Sand Creek Almanac posting as soon as election excitement has subsided. Or until I see an interesting bird, or get around to posting about the garden or the weather or the house.

UPDATE: This is interesting. I guess one of the 100 vote gains for Franken was due to election judges, in my own county, who "mistakenly" entered "24" instead of "124" for the total votes for Franken in the next township over. That makes me wonder...we entrust our votes to a few, tired officials who crank out the totals. Just how reliable is that, if they can screw 100 voting citizens out of their votes just by a clerical error?

A recount is part of the democratic process, and any politician who argues against it is against justice.

1 comment:

Jayne said...

I agree fully. There has to be a full recount. Here in GA, the GOP incumbent did not get the required 50% of the vote and there will be a run-off election. You KNOW I'll be there. ;c)