The Minnesota Republican Party wants to hear from you, if you saw anything goofy on Election Day at the polling places.
When a party and its candidate, namely Tom Emmer, are behind by about 9,000 votes, they need to chase any possible new votes wherever they think they may be.
So today, the Minnesota GOP sent an email to thousands of its supporters urging them to contact the party to report stuff.
“We need your help. Did you notice any irregularities in your precinct on election day?” the email reads.
Among the irregularities the GOP is seeking to confirm are:
- Military ballot difficulties
- Absentee ballot voting difficulties
- Same-day registrations / buses arriving at polling places
- Excessive vouching of one voter for another
- Machine malfunctions
- Unsecured ballots
- Persons with more than one ballot
- Unauthorized persons “assisting” voters in filling out ballots
- Failure of election officials to properly establish voter registration (including improper identification, failure to check residency status, etc.)
- Campaigning in the polling place
- Unauthorized persons in the polling place
- Voter intimidation inside/outside of polling place
The GOP has set up an email address to report such sightings: recount@mngop.com. It also has a hot line: 651-691-7311.
GOP officials are telling correspondents to be specific and provide precinct locations.
Meanwhile, Republican Party attorney Tony Trimble has begun the process of gathering data in preparation for a recount and possible election contest trial in the Mark Dayton-Tom Emmer election.
In emails today to election officials across Minnesota, Trimble is seeking the names “of all individuals serving as election judges on election night for all precincts within your municipality and the precincts in which such individuals served.”
It seems to be part of the GOP’s opening salvo to seek out any instances of voting irregularities.
If you can’t win the election, then discredit it.
Tony Sutton proclaimed how “fishy” and extraordinary it was that the Republicans took the House and Senate and not the governorship and accused Ritchie of election fraud. That bizarre statement follows eight years in which the democrats took the House and Senate and not the governor’s office. He will now engage in harassement on a grand scale and of course all of these “irregularities” will be bogus and he can consequently shout unfair election, do over. His actions are precisely why Minnesotan’s never elect a republican attorney general: they do not know or cannot discern the meaning of ethics or the difference between right and wrong. Rather than allowing the recount to proceed he will employ the same Coleman tactic of accusation, innuendo, manufactured problems and made up stories from election day. Eventually the judges will treat him in the same manner they treated Coleman’s Swift Boat Counsel, with suspect and incredibility.
I think Sutton might protest too much. I don’t think it is just Republicans that should be looking into electoral hijinks. Voter intimidation outside the polling places was a national news story regarding the Tea Party, not the Democrats.
Minnesota has a reputation as being one of the most honest places to hold an election. There is no reason to disparage that reputation without evidence.