Thus far, Ritchie has shown no evidence of misconduct.
No evidence of misconduct. Even Katherine Kersten has to admit that there is ZERO evidence that Mark Ritchie has been anything but an impartial and fair arbiter during this process. It would have been nice if she had put out that little nugget a little sooner in her column, but as our Governor is fond of saying, let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Of course, Kersten isn’t the only one who will admit that what happened in the canvassing process was above board. Coleman’s own lawyer, Fritz Knaak, told the Pioneer Press that what was happening was “neither wrong nor unfair.” Try to keep that quote in the back of your mind as this story continues to unfold.
In addition, MPR came out with an analysis of previous election returns today. The conclusion:
The shifting vote totals in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race may be vexing, but a look by Minnesota Public Radio at past elections shows it’s nothing unusual.
Here is the bottom line: Minnesota has one of the best election systems in the country. We should be proud of it. Republican activists like Michael Brodkorb are busy trying to undermine our democracy with absolutley zero evidence that anything improper has occurred. Don’t take my word for it, listen to Fritz Knaak, Katherine Kersten and MPR.
Regarding the recent precinct audits: fivethirtyeight says:
“his audit is designed to detect the incidence of machine error and machine error only; cases of voter error are explicitly disregarded by the audit.”
Is that true, did these audits only look for filled in ovals?
If so, it doesn’t seem like we can extrapolate these audits to the hand recount which will look for voter intent.
This was a total hit piece from KK, but it’s hardly surprising. Republicans whine and cry about the supposed liberal StarTrib, but KK is easily the most partisan, biased person published. She pushes relentlessly a partisan far-right agenda and does so without heed for logic or facts. She has consistently revealed her bigotry and bias and has no business as a columnist in the metro section.
If they want to run her idocy on the editorial page, well, that’s their business. Personally, I wouldn’t hire her to write anything. Not because she’s a conservative, but because her writing is hackery! It’s boring and predicatble and poorly written. After reading the headline and the first paragraph I can generally write the rest of the column myself without reading another word. that’s a bad sign. She usually only has about 6 subjects that she covers. Her accuracy and use of facts to support her conclusions is spotty at best and her sourcing is weak. She is a poor writer with an obvious partisan agenda.
I actually like having a broad perspective of views represented on the editorial pages and in the columns; an echo chamber is boring and uninformative. But someone who is obviously running such a nakedly partisan agenda, and attitionally suffering from the crime of bad writing should be shoved out. I mean, she was the cause of the edict from the editors to lay off the partisanship in the columns until after the election! (maybe a bad call once the horse was out of the barn) Guess they should have kept it on track a little while longer.
this is a naked attempt to smear Mark ritchie and the possibility of a Franken win before anything is even known about the recount. It’s pathetic and disgusting, but hardly surprising. Brodkorb must be so proud.
Since both sides will have observers and judges at each place the recount is going to be held… shouldn’t these numbnuts hold until it is over. I mean talk about undermining your own claims to legitimacy. Should Norm the Weasel pull this out, we now have grounds to go medieval on their asses. At this point it is a toss up in true terms, unless they know something we don’t.
Has anyone read this hit piece the Republicans are all excited about?
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/34337849.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUF
Its by John Lott, the more guns less crime guy who has a history of falsifying data.
Given that the changes are mostly the result of numbers getting misreported and not actual recounting, Lott’s analysis is bullshit. But are they even re-checking the numbers for other races?
A quote for Ms. Kersten: “The untrustworthy are ever mistrustful…”
-Gandalf
Read this Brauer article on Minnpost:
http://www.minnpost.com/davidbrauer/2008/11/12/4565/minneapolis_election_director_speaks_ballots_in_my_car_story_false
My god are the Republicans liars.
what do they have in common? An abstract sense of reality.
“In 18 major statewide races since 1998 all but three saw vote changes benefiting DFLers” after the original vote counts were reported. Former Secretary of State Joan Growe “we never did a study of that, never noticed that”. But why would anyone notice 15 out of 18 election vote counts changing in favor of the DFL? Isn’t that what is supposed to happen? Norm is a dead man walking and will lose by maybe over 500 votes by the time this is done. Oh, and I voted for the former Secretary of State in each election that she was in once I was of voting age. “never noticed”?
I don’t know why Growe would have noticed since most of those elections took place after she retired.
This is the problem with dumb people get hold of statistics.