Voice of the Voters

January 14, 2009

Summary

 

The January 14, 2009, broadcast of Voice of the Voters was titled "Minnesota: Turning a Mess into Success" and found show host Lori Rosolowsky interviewing Mark Halvorson of Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota and Mike Dean of Common Cause Minnesota.

 

The discussion centered on the ballot recount in the Senatorial race between Ron Coleman (R) and Al Franken (D). Minnesota has legislation that better accommodates the mechanics of an election recount than most other states, and has had three recounts in their history under current law.

 

The recount revealed a reversal of fortunes for candidate Coleman, and since his newly discovered loss, he has filed suit to block Franken. Both Halvorson and Dean are content with present election law and processes in Minnesota, saying that all that is needed is some tweaking to make it a model system.

 

Following the interview, Jim Strait was on air live asking again for generous real-time donations to keep Voice of the Voters on the air.

 

Closing the broadcast was John Gideon's weekly report. This week he produced a timeline concerning New Jersey's dilemma with DRE machines. Gideon reported that in 2004 citizens and local officials sued the Secretary of State to stop the use of DRE machines; in 2005 the New Jersey legislature passed a law requiring DRE's to provide for voter-verified paper ballots with a January 2008 deadline, moved to mid-2008; finally, sometime in 2009, New Jersey is prepared to attach jury-rigged Rube Goldberg-quality untested printers to existing DRE's.

 

Also, the New Jersey SOS announced that "no election will happen without printers." With the upcoming trial in late January, it is believed that this mandate to attach printers to DRE's is an attempt to make the lawsuit a moot point.

 

James Strait