Voting is ongoing across the Iron Range. I just got a report of 1,000 votes cast by just after 11 a.m. in Chisholm, which is a third of all registered voters before the afternoon shift comes home from the mines. That’s big.
I’ve been asking for stories from the front lines of voting and GOTV. If you’ve got a story e-mail me or leave a comment here at the blog.
I got a report from Itasca County from my friend John who lives in one of the many rural mail-in ballot precincts in that area. He was late in mailing his, so he brought it down to the Itasca County Courthouse. Here goes:
I had my ballot and giant mustard-colored envelope. They asked, “who was your witness when you voted?” I said “my dog,” since I filled it out early this morning. “I’m sorry, sir. “You have to have a witness, so this ballot is no good.” They also asked me where my mail-in envelope was. I said I tossed it in the garbage because I wasn’t mailing it in.“Oh … you can’t vote without your mailing envelope either.”
“But I’m not mailing it!”
“We understand but you’re going to have to go downstairs to get a new ballot.”
I was escorted downstairs by a friend of mine. She said we need to have your existing ballot put in a Spoiled Ballot Envelope. However, they didn’t have a Spoiled Ballot Envelope on hand. So either this is an unbelievably rare occurrence or the staff wasn’t properly prepared. I received my new ballot, voted, and started to leave the premises when the ballot lady yelled out, “Did you turn in your ballot?” I said yes. She said, “Then what’s that in your back pocket?” I responded, “Those are a few bills I have to pay!” To which they said, “Just checking to make sure.”I Voted
John’s dog is a basset hound named Lloyd who is very reliable, but Big Government insists on human witnesses.
It’s not always easy, but John did the right thing and kept pushing to get his ballot recorded.
You should too! There’s still time!
It sounds like we don’t know if the spoiled ballot is quarenteed or if it made it into the official ballot box. Yikes!
Any reports of Black Panthers with night sticks intimidating voters like what happened in PA?
Yes, K-Rod. Grand Rapids is full of Black Panthers. Just as you’ve always feared. The next phase is making interracial marriage not only legal, but mandatory. I’m so glad you’re looking out for what really matters.
I am appalled that you don’t think voter intimidation matters?
Your flippant attitude might suggest some support for intimidation if it helps your candidate.
What does race have to do with voter intimidation, Aaron? Are you trying to play the race card again?
The area in which the black panther was seen was in a highly democratic area of PA. I believe it voted for Kerry by over 80% last time (mostly African American supporters). I also read that the black panther was not an Obama supporter. It seems he was in general just trying to get attention, not intimidate voters. Research your info k-rod and quit assuming Fox News fact checks all of their leads before they run with them.
“I read…” what? nothing?
“It seems…” Compelling!!!
ha ha ha ha too funny anon
The fact is Obama told people to “get in their faces” and that guy had a night stick to further intimidate!
Politico.m.check it out. It tends to lean right.
Here’s your linky k-rod. Enjoy!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Panther_vs_Obama.html#comments
Oh, and source your comment regarding Obama telling people to get in others faces.
“I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” – Barack Obama September 17 2008
He wasn’t talking about doing at the polls. He was telling us to stand up for what we believe. Defend ourselves. Rebut the lies that are being spewed by the Right Wing hate machine (Hannity, Limbaugh, Fox News, Drudge, etc.). If we don’t defend people begin to believe the lies. Quit twisting statements. We are all old enough to know what he meant. You are Grasping at straws. Obama is our president-elect. Be proud of our country.
Words have meaning:
“I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” – Barack Obama September 17 2008
It is going to be a bumpy ride, hang on and pray for America.
God Bless America
It sounds like we don’t know if the spoiled ballot is quarantined or if it made it into the official ballot box. Yikes!
Fortunately for Franken that spoiled ballot will probably make it into the recount.
Probably the reason they don’t stamp it in red ink “spoiled”.
Aaron, are you going to pursue this and make sure some people aren’t voting often or pretend like it never happened? Please let us know.
What I relayed here was an e-mail I got from a friend. I actually don’t know who he voted for. I know that the county has a procedure and what I know about (and you know about) this story is from the voter’s account of one part of that procedure. Most people don’t do their mail out ballots at the courthouse, which is how this happened. I have no reason to believe anything other than that this ballot was put with other spoiled ballots per policy. I don’t want spoiled ballots counted any more than you do. Let’s just relax, follow the rules, count the ballots and move on with our lives.
We have no reason to believe this ballot made it into a spoiled ballot quarantine.
I take it that you are pretending like it never happened. Yikes!
I was expecting you to do the right thing… oh bother…
Let’s keep counting until Franken wins!!! I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard for a few more spoiled ballots to end up in the next “official” count.
There is a process for handling absentee/mail-in ballots in place. I don’t know what you expect me to do, Anonymous. I could go to the courthouse and invoke my supreme blogger rights to tell them about this one story this one friend of mine told me in an e-mail, but it wouldn’t change anything that they are already doing — which is evaluating every ballot to ensure that only valid ballots are counted. One person, one vote! (That appears to be your talking point on this thread). I could repeat what I said in my previous comment, but you’d only quote it back to me and say tsk, tsk, so let’s just see what happens.
Have a great day.
Yes, envoke your right as a citizen and find out what happened to that spoiled ballot; if you really care about voter fraud and one person one vote.
I see no reason for you not to check into this issue if you are an upstanding responsible citizen!
You must be the same guy jumping around my posts insulting any sentiment suggesting that Obama’s election was good and that things might get better in the country. I notice that this was the third stop for you.
Dude, I have a job. You know as much as I do and I am not going to go chasing red herrings at the whim of commenters on my nonpaying blog.
You must be a less than upstanding citizen to do nothing when you hear of a possible problem with spoiled ballot quarantine. I do not know as much about that spoiled ballot as you. I think clean elections are the bedrock of our country; we differ on what we would do to ensure clean elections. You do nothing but I would have checked into the matter.
Obama is gonna change the World!!!
The people who know the most about the matter are the election workers in Itasca County. I have second hand information from an e-mail. They were there for the very incident I described. This is not voter fraud. This is an error made by human beings. I don’t know what happened at the county canvass as I was working that day (Not that I have time to ferret out quarantined ballots anyway). I did hear that one absentee ballot was rejected due to election worker error and I presume, though I don’t know, that this was the ballot. The people who actually witnessed the event explained it just as well as I could have. But by all means, believe what you wish. That’s what’s easiest.
If I were in your position I would lose sleep if I did nothing about this spoiled ballot quarantine issue. I put country first. I put clean elections first.
You are free not to care enough to follow through.
Obama Bless America.