Here’s what we know. Or think we know.
At 9:25 a.m. this morning, the Norm Coleman for Senate information staff sent out an email to its media list announcing the addition of a new page on its official website.
The page included names of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.
According to Coleman spokesman Luke Friedrich, soon after, the release was zapped nationally when the very popular news web site, The Drudge Report linked to the Coleman page.
A rush of traffic from Drudge injured the Coleman web site’s functionality. Drudge-induced traffic has been known to do that to other sites, we’re told.
By 12:56 p.m. today, the Norm Coleman for Senate information staff sent out an email headlined: “THOUSANDS OF HITS CRASH COLEMAN WEBSITE”
The release said: “Information recently added to the Coleman for Senate website, whereby people can find out which Minnesota voters the Franken campaign is trying to disenfranchise, has resulted in the website being inundated by tens of thousands of hits today – temporarily crashing the website …The website is currently unavailable, but the campaign is actively working to remedy the problem. “
But, by 2:03 p.m., Aaron Landry at MnPublius charged that the crash of the site was a lie. You can read his point of view and judge for yourself.
Some other news sites jumped on it.
The comments at MnPublius included some plausible theories as why the site crashed. Some included convinced geeks that this crash was self-inflicted. Other comments were wacky, good-old-fashioned, anti-Coleman-conspiracy theories.
Friedrich, leveraging the moment, told MinnPost: “It’s pretty clear folks are unhappy with Franken’s efforts to disenfranchise Minnesota voters. And I’d like to thank anyone who directs more people to our website as we work to get those votes counted.”
By 6:30 p.m., the site was up and running. You can check to see if your vote was counted.
The Colemanforsenate.com site has been inaccessible overnight and today.
Online statements appeared, declaring the Coleman campaign website was insecure. These statements included claims that the campaign’s internal list of donors, with additional data that was confidential and/or not reported to the FEC. These claims appear to have had enough credibility that Coleman’s people have apparently decided to just unplug their server and stay down until they can find someone competent enough to do it right.
Standard GOP procedure – use only loyal true believers until everything goes to hell, then, finally, try to find some people who know how to get the actual work done.
If this had been a genuine hack, people would have been diverted to Franken’s site, which works just fine and lets you donate however much you might want towards his expenses in dealing with Coleman’s Horde:
https//secure.alfranken.com/page/contribute
This article implies that the Coleman list of rejected absentee votes is comprehensive. However, the Coleman site does not say that, “The individuals listed on this site are among the Minnesotans whose absentee ballots have not yet been counted.” Given that it is not a comprehensive list, I think we have to ask what criterion was used when selecting who to include on the list and who not to include.