Tom Emmer Wednesday conceded the Minnesota governor's race to DFLer Mark Dayton. He said all the right things and has been widely praised for being "gracious." One inclined toward cynicism might suggest that the "graciousness" was begat of having been deprived of a leg to stand on. Just as it became clear that the manual recount would confirm the election-night count, showing an 8800-vote margin for Dayton, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision rejecting Emmer's claim that some precincts had erred by reconciling ballot counts with voter receipts instead of with voter signatures.
Still, Emmer has been more responsible than many of his admiring supporters. In the weeks between the election and his tardy concession, one sometimes got the impression that the state Republican party, and especially its chairman, Tony Sutton, was more than Emmer responsible for the strategy of making frivolous challenges to ballots plainly marked for Dayton and for hinting that a court challenge to Dayton's election might be forthcoming. And today, on the editorial page of the Star Tribune, two leaders of Minnesota Majority, an inaptly named right-wing organization, argue that the Supreme Court's dismissal of Emmer's petition regarding ballot reconciliation is not just flawed but corrupt.
Minnesota Majority is a bete noire of mine. I'm used to people and organizations not agreeing with me. But this outfit, under the guise of being "a nonprofit government watchdog," deliberately undermines public confidence in the democratic process if that process results in Democrats or liberals winning elections and advancing a policy agenda that Minnesota Majority opposes. Let us take a look at the technical issues involved, which I think show Emmer's case, and that made by Minnesota Majority in today's op-ed, are both utterly without merit.
The law in question is Minn Stat Sec 204C.20. The "election register" referred to in subdivision 1 no longer exists. The statute should be updated. The fundamental requirement, however, is plainly that the number of ballots counted in a precinct must match the number of voters. The statute envisions that the number of voters be determined by counting the signatures of people who sign in at the polling place before voting. But actual practice in many precincts, especially more populous ones (which tend to vote Democratic), is to give voters who sign in a receipt, which is then exchanged for a ballot, and at the end of the evening officials reconcile the number of ballots with the number of turned-in receipts. The idea is to avoid the very cumbersome task of going through the sign-in book, counting signatures on a page, turning the page, counting more, and on and on: the book is thick in urban precincts, and a mismatch between ballots and signatures would usually be caused by an inaccurate count of signatures. It is very much easier to count receipts, which has been permitted by administrative rule for years and years, without any protest from the Republican party or Minnesota Majority, and has, as I say, been the actual practice in a lot of precincts for as long as the rule has permitted it.
The remedy for an excess of ballots at the end of the day is set out in subdivision 2:
If there is still an excess of properly marked ballots, the election judges shall replace them in the box, and one election judge, without looking, shall withdraw from the box a number of ballots equal to the excess. The withdrawn ballots shall not be counted but shall be preserved as provided in subdivision 4.
This is the provision that undoubtedly attracted the attention of Team Emmer. Their candidate, after all, had lost by only around 9,000 votes, and here is a plausible way of changing the tally. If they could get a court to hold that the administrative rule was an illegal substitute for the statutory language calling for the matching of ballots to signatures, then they could quite possibly get a lot of ballots thrown out in urban precincts that voted for Dayton.
One problem with this is, as I mentioned above, that the practice of reconciling ballots with receipts has been used for years without anyone complaining. It's been used for years because, especially in precincts where there may be more than a thousand ballots cast, counting receipts is faster and more accurate. This has not been a disputed matter until Emmer raised the issue after he had narrowly lost. The logic behind the method is really nothing more than: a=b and b=c means that a=c. You get a receipt only when you have signed, you trade the receipt for the ballot, and turn in your marked ballot. The number of ballots therefore should match the number of receipts (and signatures, but it's faster and easier to count receipts).
The Supreme Court had no trouble seeing the weakness in Emmer's argument and voted unanimously to deny his petition. Three of the justices were appointed by Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota's Republican governor. What can Minnesota Majority see that they could not?
A conspiracy, it seems:
The justices may have been considering factors other than simply interpreting the law when they issued their short-sighted decision. Preventing another drawn out elecion contest, or protecting the state's bureaucracy from criticism or even prosecution, for example.
You see, the fix is in. The Supreme Court is part of the effort to shield an election process that is fundamentally corrupt. These are very serious charges. What is the evidence for them? None is forthcoming. Of course, it is not just the justices of the Supreme Court, including those appointed by Governor Pawlenty, who are in on the effort to subvert the law and the democratic process:
At the end of Election Day, election judges are under pressure to balance election records. If the receipt count does not match the ballot count, judges have been known to rectify the situation by simply tearing off a few more receipts and moving them to the other stack. Magically, the totals are then in balance!
I love the way in which the authors try to disguise their lameness with the awkward construction, "have been known to." Have been known by whom? When? Is there any evidence it happened in this election? They don't say. It is clear, however, that nefarious activity is occurring at the polls:
If a ballot box can be stuffed, extra ballot receipts can even more easily be torn-off [sic] to equal the number of ballots. The fact that there weren't as many voters as ballots would never be detected.
In the world according to Minnesota Majority, an excess of ballots can only be explained by "ballot box stuffing." Small, human errors that cancel each other out? No, there is fraud and corruption, Minnesota Majority knows it, and you would, too, if the justices of the Supreme Court were not part of the conspiracy to keep you in the dark.
Despicable.
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