LIBERADIO(!)

Al Franken won his Senate seat in Minnesota because every vote was counted.

Wait. Scratch that.

Al Franken won his Senate in Minnesota because every vote could be counted.

You see, Minnesotans get to vote on something called “paper ballots.” And these “paper ballots” can be recounted when there is a close election. Crazy, I know. For those of us in Tennessee who can only vote on electronic black boxes with secret vote counting (flipping?) software, the Franken victory seems mythic.

Election Integrity journalist and BradBlog.com writer/producer Brad Friedman explains:

Although the victory was sealed today, the Republican claims of “voter fraud” became impossible to support long ago, because hand-marked paper ballots – nearly three million of them – as cast by the voters in the squeaker of an election, were actually being counted, in full view of the media and any interested citizen alike. To a ballot, they were all accounted for, and any disagreement about voter intent on those ballots was adjudicated in an open process by a bipartisan state canvassing board. All but a handful of those votes were determined unanimously by the board to have been cast either for Franken, for Coleman, for a third party candidate or for nobody at all.

The only question remaining after the weeks-long, painstaking, public hand-count was whether a number of uncounted absentee ballots, rejected as per the state’s strict standards for counting, should, in fact, be counted.

Minnesotans and their damn-near perfect elections are the envy of Election Integrity activists everywhere. What with their “paper ballots,” audits, a mandated automatic hand-counted recount of the “paper ballots” if an election is close, an open counting process, citizen vigilance over the ballot chain of custody, etc. etc..

What’s a Tennessean gotta do to get some secure and verifiable elections? Learn to ice fish?