At the end, Franken won what the junior Senator from Minnesota now refers to as “The most efficient senatorial race ever carried out in the State of Minnesota. No votes were wasted.”

Now, the Democratic candidate for Governor in this year’s election has received about nine thousand votes more than the Republican candidate. Twenty times the difference in from the Franken-Coleman recount, but still, enough to trigger a recount.

Based on what the Republicans said two years ago, their candidate, Emmer, should simply step aside now, insist that no recount is necessary, and allow Mark Dayton the courtesy of moving forward with a transition.

But no. Not only is Emmer not going to withdraw, but the republicans are claiming that there is now way that Dayton could have gotten so many votes without something illegal happeing, with a leader in the state legislature claiming that “something does not smell right.”

Indeed. Something does not smell right.

What is going to happen, of course, is that the recount is going to move forward, and the number of votes by which Dayton beats Emmer is going to increase. Or at least, that is what the applicable wisdom would predict. In any event, the prospect of 9,000 or so votes going away (or 4,500 or so votes switching) is pretty slim. Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota. It will probably take a few months, though I have not looked at the process in any detail yet.

And, you can fully expect the Republicants to spend the entire time whinging and accusing and belly aching and sputtering and tossing whatever wrenches they have into the Democratic Process.

One big difference between the last recount and this one is this: Although the stakes are huge for us here in Minnesota … we’ve temporarily lost our DFL majority in the state house and a Republican governor in combination with a GOP majority there would be truly devastating (especially this governor), the national stakes at the time of the Franken-Colemen recount were huge. Huge enough for every recount-experienced operative and lawyer in the entire country to converge here and a zillion dollars to be raised to support the process on both sides. There will be a huge effort here, but it can’t possibly be as large an operation. Yet, every vote will need to be recounted.

So … let’s get to work. Unless, of course, Tom Emmer wants to do the right thing. Which is highly unlikely.

The Delaware Democratic Party claimed Tuesday that Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell’s supporters were rallying outside polling places and creating a disturbance that amounted to illegal “voter intimidation”…

The state Democratic Party first leveled the charge in a brief written statement Tuesday afternoon.

“There have been some reports of voter intimidation from the O’Donnell campaign or her supporters throughout the state. This activity is illegal and contrary to our rule of civility in Delaware,” the party said.

… voters had called their hotline to complain that groups of 15-20 people were rallying and chanting outside polling places … Voters reported feeling uncomfortable and, in some cases, being unable to access the polling site, she said.

…

“They’re doing it right in the entranceway and they’re being extremely loud,” she said.

Ellis said some voters could hear the chanting inside, which she called an election law violation, and that the campaign has since been asked to stop.

…

“These groups were cheering … making noise that was carrying into the 50 (foot) area although the group was not inside the 50 (foot) area physically. Because the noise could be heard inside the area, I called the campaign and asked them to discontinue the practice,” Manlove said. “I have had no further complaints, so my assumption is that the campaign has ceased this practice.”

More details

The Kansas Democratic Party has leveled a charge of voter intimidation and has filed a complaint with the Kansas Attorney General’s office.

According to the Kansas Democratic Party, they received allegations from “individual” voters from around Kansas who claimed to have received a robo-call from who they called an “as yet named Republican organization” reminding them to bring their voter registration card and proof of home ownership with them to the polls on Nov. 3.

First, the election is slated for Nov. 2 and second, Kansas voters are not required to bring a voter registration card nor proof of home ownership to the polls when they vote.

“There is no place for voter intimidation in our electoral process,” said Kansas Democratic Party Chairman Larry Gates. “Every Kansas voter should feel comfortable with their right to cast a ballot and understand tactics like these are lies meant to scare them away from exercising that right.”

Gavin Young, spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Steve Six said that there has been an investigation opened into the allegations because voter intimidation is a felony under Kansas law.

read the rest here

Do not be a moron. You can vote if you live here. That’s true pretty much everywhere. Just do it. If you get to the polls and things don’t seem to be right for you to vote, talk to the people sitting at the folding table. It can always be done, even if it requires some forms being filled out.

We just got back from our polling place. There were a LOT of people there, but I didn’t spot any of the 10,000 teabaggers that promised to show up at Minnesota polls to harass people, defying a court order. I was deeply disappointed. I wanted to get me a teabagger. Wrestle his ass to the ground, step on his head, all that. Oh well. Maybe I’ll go back later.

TPM reports that the Kansas Attorney General is looking into reports that some voters were called and told “the election has been moved to Wednesday, that they need to bring their voter registration cards to the polls and that they need proof of homeownership to vote.”

and

The Delaware Democratic Party tweeted this afternoon about unspecified “reports” of voter intimidation in Dover.

source

You can check out the Dover Dems tweets here.

Early this morning, self-identified tea party activists showed up at a polling station near Benedict College in Columbia, “basically harassing students–telling people not to vote and generally making voters feel uncomfortable,” says Keiana Page, press secretary for the state Democratic Party, who said that the party’s legal team is currently investigating the reported incident at the historically black college.

Details

A group called Minnesota Majority is said to have deployed over 10,000 people to polling stations across Minnesota in what is being called “an aggressive campaign to fight what organizers claim is a widespread problem of voter fraud.”

And, in so doing, have launched a major episode of voter indimidation.

… Minnesota Majority is directing its members to wear “Please ID Me” buttons in violation of a federal judge’s orders,…

Judge Joan Ericksen ruled Monday that the buttons “are designed to affect the actual voting process at the polls by intimating that voters are required to show identification before voting,” …

In an e-mail sent to the conservative tea party-affiliated group’s members on Monday night, however, Minnesota Majority encouraged those heading to the polls to defy the judge’s order.

“You can simply remove or cover the challenged item and you’ll be allowed to vote, or you can refuse and demand your right to vote and the election judge will allow you to vote, while also recording your name and you could be charged with a petty misdemeanor,” the e-mail said, according to TPM.

source

So, if you are at the polls to day in MN, and you see one of those buttons, it may be your civic duty to ensure that the polling officers take down that person’s name. For later. What fun.

Minnesota media is reporting several instances of overzealous election challengers in polling places as the Republican Party of Minnesota ramps up its allegations of voter fraud. In several Minnesota precincts, reporters confirmed that GOP poll challengers have overstepped their bounds. …

…The Associated Press reports that in Hennepin County there have been some tense conversations between election judges and GOP challengers who don’t seem to understand the rules….

…the poll challengers were entering restricted areas and making challenges that are against the rules….

…The Minnesota Independent received a report this morning that a poll challenger at the Emerson school in the Loring Park area of Minneapolis was challenging Somali voters….

…The Star Tribune reports that in Shakopee a GOP challenger questioned the registration of a voter because he was “too young.”…

…In Bloomington, the Star Tribune reports, an African American woman was asked by an election judge if she was a felon after she had already affirmed her oath. “I am an African American woman and I do believe this old Caucasian biddy was targeting me,” she told the Minneapolis paper. “Things are getting out of hand!”…

…”Minnesota residents have reported sightings of a mobile billboard driving through Minneapolis affixed with Election Integrity Watch’s poster of an individual in handcuffs, which is designed to suppress and intimidate voters,”…

More here.

Why other people’s thoughts? Because at this point, other than casting my own vote, there is nothing I can do to change an inevitably bad day for society, civilization, democracy, rational thought, and sanity.

I can hope that the day will not be as bad as it will, and there is indeed some evidence that this is possible.

5 Reasons Democrats Could Beat the Polls and Hold the House

A scenario like this one is possible tomorrow — not particularly likely, but possible — just as a 77-seat Republican gain is possible. It’s probably a somewhat greater possibility than people realize. Here are five reasons Democrats could outperform their polls and beat consensus expectations.*

They talk about the cellphone effect, the robopoll effect, thethiseffect and thethateffect. We’ll see.

Sometimes, when I feel like this, I go back and forth between not wanting them to “take” my country away, or that of my children, vs. thinking that they can have the stinking mess. Yesterday at the Gym I devised, in my mind, a set of slogans to print on T-shirts to wear at the gym. My blog is mostly for the converted, but my T-shirts are there to annoy them, as it is among them that I live these days. I want T-shirts that say “Tax the Rich” and “The Tea Party: Heternomrative, Recalcitrant, Addlepated, Pillaging Troglodytes with a Poor Vocabulary” and so on. I want to wear T-shirts that make bearded glassy eyed ruffians with mild fetal alcohol syndrome and bad teeth approach me in the parking lot outside to confront me with their blazingly inarticulate mealy mouthed mumbling. So I can slay them. Like by saying this:

I’m voting to take my country back from a movement that’s been in place for most of my lifetime. This movement has tried, and largely succeeded, in reversing the liberal policies that brought our country some of our most prosperous decades.

… which you can read here.

They have no clue what they are asking for, of what most of their words mean, or of how what they are saying is so utterly contradictory and absurd. Thomas Jefferson is spinning at Mach Two in his grave.

And what is most frustrating is that people who are disaffected, who feel that their progressive ideals have not been fully materialized in a 24 month time period and therefore someone must pay, will either do the stupidest thing in the world they can do (vote for the “other guy”) or the second stupidest thing they can do (not show up to vote at all). Because, really, if you have a memory that goes back as far as mine (which is remarkably far, comparing myself to the average voter … like ten years or so) Obama had been one of the better presidents we’ve had. (But I don’t expect you, if you are one of these other THEMS who would rather feel outrage than do the right thing, to read that because you don’t want to feel wrong even if the rest of us must pay for your arrogance.)

Do you want to know the Ugly Truth? Here is the Ugly Truth: If everybody who could vote did vote, the Democrats would hold the house and gain a seat or two in the senate.

This means that there is a non-trivial number of people who are worse than the teabaggers, worse than the “second amendment remedy” twits, and worse than any Republican. These are the people who want me and the rest of US to maintain the progressive movement while you are too busy changing the fucking toilet paper rolls in your house to vote.

OK, so I managed to get a couple of my own thoughts in there. But that is of no consequence. Just go vote. That is all that matters today.

Kansas, you don’t need this. Check out the details here.