I'd wanna see what the rest of the ballot looks like. If the other votes look similar, then this probably is a Coleman vote. If the other votes are all anally neat ovals, then something is funny here. barfo
You can't divine what the voter's intent was. He marked for Coleman and not for anyone else, it's clearly a vote for Coleman.
I think the rest of the votes (on that ballot) do matter. If all the votes are like that (sloppy), then it should. But if it's the only one, you could question it. It also depends on if the rule is that it has to be like a "scantron" type vote, where if you draw outside of the line, it's null. But if that's the case, the vote wouldn't have counted anyway (via a scanner).
That's not the conceptual basis for recounts, so far as I've seen. Recounting ballots is always about divining voter intent. Both sides argue over what the intent was on questionable or challenged ballots.
OK, I'll divine voter intent: every ballot you think was for Franken was really for Coleman because that was the voter's intent. Clearly. The ballots for Coleman are for Coleman, too. So let's argue about that! The best lawyers win this argument - fuck the voters. (LOL) If this ballot were marked for both candidates, it'd be a spoiled ballot, though the speculation as to who the voter meant to vote for might be interesting but hardly binding.
On further reflection I'd say the haphazard, chaotic, almost childlike sloppiness of the voter's approach to Democracy, clearly represents Republican thinking at it's finest. The vote stands.
Well, the best lawyers win the arguments over the questionable ballots. Fuck the voters who vote unclearly, I guess.
Somebody is gonna have to be a Johnnie Cochran type mutha fukking pimp lawyer to get me to think that vote shouldn't count.
I don't understand the outrage. Despite being just a first-term senator, Norm Coleman is considered one of the top four most corrupt senators, because of an ongoing and very improper financial relationship with the head of a telemarketing firm (among other things, Coleman has been living for free at the guy's townhouse, but Coleman's PAC has paid him $1.5 million). He should be drummed out of office; it doesn't matter how. With the defeat of Stevens, he has probably moved up to #3. But maybe that is preferable to some of you than Al Franken.
A) What outrage? B) Franken is trying to take away someone's obvious vote. Seems cut and dry to me, unless you think that Franken should cheat to win solely because you don't like Norm Coleman. Franken didn't pay taxes and took money from the NYC Boys and Girls Club. Does that mean he should have obvious votes taken away from him?
If it is obvious, then he will lose the appeal. What's the big deal? His campaign workers are just doing their job. [somehow I doubt that Franken himself is peering over their shoulders and examining ballots, so I'll assume that your anger is directed at his campaign, and not him]. While it looks, on its face, like an obvious vote, we don't have the benefit of seeing the rest of the ballot, as someone else pointed out. I can certainly imagine different ways that the rest of the ballot could look like that would put doubt on the voter's intent. Likely? Maybe not. But I'll withhold judgment, since I'm not there, and I'm just looking at something that someone wants me to see. I personally don't understand how this ballot was leaked to the press, if it is, in fact, real. It seems to me that someone has an agenda in making this public.
