It appears Al Franken has truly turned Minnesota election law into a Franken-stein of a monster recount--something the election laws were never intended to do: enable stealing an election.

If you have been following this race since election day 2 months ago, you know that incumbent Senator Coleman was 215 votes ahead of opponent Al Franken when the votes were originally counted. But after Minneapolis' director of elections remembered she forgot 32 absentee ballots in her car the following Friday, and 2 liberal precincts claimed they initially miscommunicated the vote totals, Franken picked up another 346 votes, for a total of 378 Franken votes. The oddity being that "none of the other contests recorded any changes in their vote totals" due to this supposed miscommunication.

For a while, it looked like Coleman would still keep his Senate seat, but more and more there is Funny Business in Minnesota, In which every dubious ruling seems to help Al Franken: 

Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome. Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor.

Mr. Franken started the recount 215 votes behind Senator Coleman, but he now claims a 225-vote lead and suddenly the man who was insisting on "counting every vote" wants to shut the process down. He's getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.

The latest travesty in the Franken recount is abusing the duplicate ballot provision. (Emphasis mine)

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as "duplicate" and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

Another county "'lost' 133 votes" due to possible double running of ballots through the machines. (In other words, the machine stated 133 votes more than actual ballots.) The Canvassing Board decided to go with the original higher tally--helping Franken by 42 votes. An additional 37 Franken votes from another county were gathered by going with a higher ballot total than the Election Night machine total, even though the higher ballot tally was greater than voters in the precinct!

Anything goes, IF it helps Al Franken win! Do read the entire Wall Street Journal piece. Truth is stranger than fiction!

Senator Coleman is to challenge the Canvassing Board's results. His attorney "said the challenge will be filed within 24 hours. The challenge will keep Franken from getting the election certificate he needs to take the seat in Washington."

A few days ago, Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas promised to block the Franken seating in the Senate with a filibuster. Good for Cornyn.

So far, Senate Democrats put off plans to seat Franken, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yielded to Republican threats and agreed on Monday not to immediately seat fellow Democrat Al Franken, whose razor-close victory in Minnesota faces legal challenges."

Republicans have dropped the ball, in my opinion, on allowing voter fraud after voter fraud to continue, until at last people just throw up their hands and accept it as business as usual.

I hope the Republicans stand firm on this one for once and grow some backbone!

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Would these 13 be some of those campaign workers Biden was proud of? In fairness, the McCain campaign was warned too, but I have not seen details about numbers of them withdrawing their ballots. (My emphasis throughout.)

BAM Staffers pull their bogus Ohio ballots Oct. 25, 2008

Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama yesterday yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can't vote in the battleground state.

A dozen staffers - including Obama Ohio spokeswoman Olivia Alair and James Cadogan, who recently joined Team Obama - signed a form letter asking the Franklin County elections board to pull their names from the rolls.

The letter - a copy of which was obtained by palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate - came a day after prosecutor Ron O'Brien publicly urged out-of-state campaign workers for both Obama and John McCain to "examine your conscience" before the elections board beings begins opening absentee ballots today.

Earlier in the week, O'Brien spoke with lawyers for both camps and urged them to make sure their staffs met permanent-residency rules, or face possible felony charges.

...

On Thursday, O'Brien cut a deal with 13 out-of-staters, including four from New York, who tossed out their already-cast ballots and admitted they didn't meet residency requirements.

In an earlier article, Both Sides Warned on Ohio Ballots Oct. 22, 2008,  other illegal voters are being investigated besides the official campaign workers.

O'Brien said he is "hoping to work out a fair agreement" with both camps - as well as other out-of-staters unassociated with the campaigns who also registered in Ohio.

Among the scenarios: tossing out the already-cast ballots of non-permanent residents and denying the absentee ballot requests of others. Early voting in Ohio began Sept. 30.

Also yesterday, O'Brien said he and elections officials are looking into people from other states who appear to have parachuted into Ohio to vote.

They include several members of Manhattan-based pro-Obama group Vote Today Ohio. Its founder, New York resident Tate Hausman, registered and voted in Columbus, records show, and is among those under scrutiny.

Workers might have been in the state early enough to have registered 30 days in advance, but according to O'Brien, they failed to meet the other criteria of "you have to have a bona-fide intention of staying permanently."

Why does this permanency matter? If the worker doesn't vote at home, he is just casting one vote, right?

The reason it matters is because a campaign could flood a swing state with campaign workers, cast their votes there, thus tipping the outcome of a tight election. (If the workers came from solid red or blue states, their home state would never miss their votes.)

There are so many opportunities for voter fraud with early voting. Absentee ballots were originally created as a courtesy to those who are infirmed or who knew they would be out of town on election day. Now they are an avenue to stealing elections.

People: Don't you just love them! 

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Remember the song, Raindrops keep falling on my head? I'm thinking we need a new version: ACORNs keep falling on my head! (Sing along to the original song's last refrain.)

ACORNs keep falling on my head,

And just like the guy who keeps reg-i-st'ring the dead,

No one seems to care,

'Cause, we're never gonna stop the fraud by complainin'

Because they're free-e-e,

No one's checkin' their ID 

I'm sure we could come up with alternative lyrics to the whole song with a different theme for each stanza: multiple registration, fictitious name, underage, felon, non-citizen registrations--you name it, but you get the idea. 

Here are just a few newsworthy rotten ACORNs. 

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

1 VOTER, 72 REGISTRATIONS: 'ACORN PAID ME IN CASH & CIGS': 

CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

Local 2 Investigates Dead Voters: (And Texas has a voter ID law!)

Texas Watchdog compared Harris County's voter registration roll with the Social Security death index and found more than 4,000 matches -- registered voters that, it appears, are already dead.

...Auditors identified 49,049 registered voters state-wide who may have been ineligible to vote. Approximately 23,576 may have been deceased and another 23,114 were possible felons. And they found more than 2,359 duplicate records.

Many convicted felons remain on voter rolls, according to Sun Sentinel investigation. The video clip interviewed one convicted felon who was registered by the Democratic party. (ACORN was not mentioned in this case.)

Since January 2006, more than 1.6 million new voters have registered in Florida. FDLE [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] identified more than 124,000 possible felons.

...Elections workers are now reviewing more than 3,800 possible felon voters but have more than 108,000 others still to be checked. "We've not touched those records yet," Browning said.

Yesterday, the 3rd person [was] charged with election fraud in Wisc.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A third person in Milwaukee faces charges of election fraud after prosecutors say he turned in 54 fake registrations, including one for a man who died 16 years ago.

Frank Walton, 29, submitted the inaccurate voter forms to the city Election Commission, according to a criminal complaint, with errors that also included fake driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers.

Walton faces one count of falsely procuring voter registration and faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if he's convicted.

And, let's not forget that even Mickey Mouse Tries to Register to Vote, The cartoon character's application, which included a stamped logo of ACORN, was rejected by Florida elections officials over summer. 

Florida elections officials rejected Mickey's application this summer. It is unclear whether Mickey tried to register as a Democrat or a Republican. But the application included a stamped logo of ACORN, the community organizing group that is facing accusations of voter registration fraud.

At least Mickey is a Florida resident! 

There are so many incidents of ACORN and other fraudulent voter registration stories, that it is difficult to keep up with them. There is little that can be done at this point because we have not accurately maintained our voter registration rolls and Democrats are unwilling to help remedy the situation. (Remember how the Wisconsin Democrat Senators wouldn't bring Voter ID to a vote last spring? My Senator, Jim Sullivan*, cast a key vote in keeping that measure from the floor.)

Sickening.

*I will help the next conservative Republican State Senate candidate's campaign. How about you? 

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An Ohio woman explains how ACORN workers pushed her to vote multiple times. "Even if you tell them that, 'I've already registered,' they'll be like, 'Well, just sign your name and give us the the last four of your social and we'll do the rest."

From Fox News: (My emphasis)

An Ohio man said he registered to vote 77 times in a year and a half. Another says activists in the group ACORN pursued him until he registered 10-15 times and now the group is publicly admitting they cannot stop fraud in its ranks because they just don't have the resources.

Investigations are going on in 12 states, including Wisconsin. Surprisingly Texas is one of the 12. According to a couple I met at the recent McCain / Palin rally, Texas does have a voter ID law. You either use a drivers license or state issued voter ID.

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I was just thinking...could Congress enact some sort of emergency legislation for a nationwide voter ID requirement, and if a voter did not have one, their ballot be cast provisionally. Guess I wasn't the first.

GrasstopsUSA sent out an email, asking that we demand "Congress be called back into session IMMEDIATELY and emergency legislation must be passed that simply states that voters must produce a valid state or federal ID at the polls or have their vote counted provisionally." (I do not support GrasstopsUSA financially but find their emails interesting.) This has a snowballs chance of going anywhere, but dealing with voter fraud after the fact is pretty ineffective.

It does little good to question a vote after the fact. Once ballots are cast in the usual way, it is impossible to know if they came from a legitimately registered voter or a fraudulent one. 

Another idea might be for emergency legislation requiring the permanent ink on the finger solution, as they did in Iraq. It wouldn't prohibit illegals from voting, but at least a person could cast only one vote.

My son informs me that idea would not work because we are too sophisticated a society and have access to solvents. (I guess I can already picture certain groups passing out little foil packets of solvent wipes to their voters.) 

What about requiring a fingerprint to vote? That wouldn't disenfranchise anyone since we all have a fingerprint. (Retailers used to require fingerprints if paying by check.) I don't like the Big-Brother-ish aspect of that idea, but voters might be hesitant to use a fraudulent registration if they knew there was a record of it.

I contacted Congressman Sensenbrenner, Senators Kohl and Feingold and the President about my concerns regarding the need for voter ID and signed up to be a poll watcher. At least I know I tried.

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At yesterday's McCain/Palin Town Hall meeting, a person from Milwaukee County's Republican Party passed out info to the waiting crowd: "Your VOTE is being STOLEN!" It gave some information about the problem of voter fraud.

"National activist groups such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), come to Milwaukee and members have been charged with padding the voter list by adding fake names. Once these fake names are on the voter lists, they can be voted by people claiming to be that person."

It mentioned Obama's associations with Project Vote, a subsidiary of ACORN, and how local municipal clerks are saying they don't have the time to follow the laws of the United States. It ended with,

"Concerned? You should be. Want to help? Contact 414-727-0008" 

I called the Milwaukee Republican Party for more information. The woman who answered the phone said they were looking for poll watchers. (She suggested you bring your own chair.) I asked if this was to identify declared Republican voters, as they did in 2004 or if it was to look for voter registration irregularities. She said it was to check on registration irregularities.

The Waukesha office said that the poll watchers duties were to check if their base was voting but also to make sure people did not vote twice.  

If you wan to help, call your campaign headquarters and volunteer. The Waukesha office number is 262-542-8532

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Today's Washington Times piece, PRUDEN: Smells from the shadows sums up much of what's fishy about this election: the voter fraud, the biased media, and of course, Sen. Barack Obama's questionable associations. (My emphasis)

Something odd is going on. The Obama campaign boasts of a landslide in the making even as his polling lead slips a point or two, and there's anger bordering on rage when John McCain and Sarah Palin raise questions about Barack Obama's judgment in his unexplored past in Chicago.

An investigation of ACORN, a cabal of "political activists" hired to register voters in the neighborhoods where few friends of John McCain abide has now spread to 10 states. ... The rules for this game were written in Chicago.

Wesley Pruden brings up an important point that often is overlooked: judgment. Whatever explanation Obama gives to explain away his many controversial associations, Rev. Wright, Rev. Flagler, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, and even his work with ACORN, still doesn't address Obama's lack of judgment. How could he have not known these associations were toxic to a political career?

The unanswered questions are not about crimes, but about his judgment.

Obama has used that That isn't the so-in-so I knew several times to whitewash his relationships. Yet, good judgment is a necessary quality in a President. A president must be able to size up individuals and make accurate assessments of their character, be they prospective cabinet members or leaders of countries such as Iran, Venezuela or North Korea!

But we do know that he has a history of choosing odd friends, such as Tony Rezko, whose sentencing for racketeering was postponed this week, suggesting that Tony the Squeezer is squealing to the feds in pursuit of a lighter sentence. Maybe the squealing will tell us something else about the Obama past. Or maybe not. The senator's reticence encourages speculation, some of it perhaps unfair.

But why did it take him 20 years to discover that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his beloved pastor in Chicago, is a racist bigot who doesn't like white folks very much and who prayed for God to "damn America."

Why indeed. Political candidates lives are supposed to be an open book. The media used to investigate everything. So "Why the ferocious attempts to stifle these perfectly legitimate questions?"

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