Quote:
Originally Posted by SteamWake
The funny thing about this 'election' is that Franken's opponent won outright.
Then on the demanded recounts Franken got more and more votes.
Very curious indeed.
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Not curious at all. The entire purpose of a recount is to re-do the count for the purpose of checking accuracy. The fact that the vote count changed is indicative that the decision for a recount was appropriate.
My major concern, and this is not limited to the MN election is the election officials attempting to determine voter intent. This is wrong!
A ballot is either valid or invalid. If a citizen is too stupid to to mark a ballot correctly then their vote should not count.
Putting election officials in the position of trying to determine voter intent is inappropriate. Voter intent is demonstrated by the ballot, not an interpretation of what the ballot may or may not indicate.
The various states have been setting a, in my opinion, very bad precedent with "voter intent" evaluations.
I am an election official in my state. In our elections at any time before the vote is scanned, the citizen can request a new ballot and we will void the old ballot. This is explained to every voter in person when they vote.
Mistakes are understandable. Especially in ballots using markers. If any citizen mistakenly makes any stray marks on their ballot, all they have to do is tell an election official and a new ballot will be issued. no embarrassment; no problems. There is a procedure for this.
In order to make our elections as fair as possible, we simply can't be putting election officials in the position of having to determine voter intent with mismarked ballots.
I may be a bit harsh but I feel that if a citizen is too stupid to operate a paper ballot they probably are too stupid to have their votes counted.
