Voting 101(a)

Posted at 1:17 PM on November 7, 2008 by Tim Nelson

So one recount theory has it that a hand examination of the ballots is going to be good for Democrat Al Franken.

Since new, young and immigrant voters are thought to be liberally inclined, the thinking goes, Democratic voters might be less familiar with the process and more inclined toward error -- presumably the kind of error that can still be sorted out under Minnesota's voter intent law. That, in turn, would give Republican U.S. Senator Norm Coleman's challenger additional -- and possibly winning -- votes in a recount.

Well, think again.

Democrats aren't the only partisans that might have a stray thought or two about Minnesota's voting methods.

Case in point: the Minneapolis Republicans. A sample ballot mailed out under their name seems to offer the curious suggestion that Republicans would want to vote for a Republican school board candidate by circling her name. Here's a copy of the sample ballot that arrived in a Minneapolis mailbox the other day:

Granted, Republicans are as capable as anyone else of reading the directions on the actual ballot on Election Day or hearing from someone else about how to mark their ballots. I sent an email over to minneapolisrepublicans.org to see what they meant with the name-circling, but haven't heard back from them yet.

But it looks like stray voting might just be a multi-partisan affair.

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