An interesting interactive article from Minnesota Public Radio.

Challenged Ballots: You be the judge.

Representatives from the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken have been challenging ballots across the state.

It's your turn to play election judge.

Go here to view the ballots and judge how they should be ruled:

Challenged Ballots

Fascinating! Thanks for the link, Vicki.

I voted with the majority every time, but it would be really interesting if we were ever able to see what the judges decide.


Wendy

Where I vote is electronic ballots but I'm sure most places send out sample ballots as they do where I live. That being the case there isn't any reason you should have trouble filling out your ballot, not if you take time, look and read carefully. Also with all the fuss over the Bush/Gore election I would think that people would be more careful. Also they have people all around that I'm sure you could ask what you can do if you made a mistake. The ones with the smudges or finger prints are just stupid to contest. Some of those mistakes though looked like to me that the voter was trying to create problems by marking in several places, adding write-ins and the Lizard People. They should be rejected without question.

Getting to vote for the candidate of your choice is a sacred privilege and people should take it seriously. IMHO.

Logically, there shouldn't be any disputed ballots. The voting machines in Minnesota were set up so that if the machine could not determine the vote for any specific candidate or initiative, the machine would prompt the voter in case of error and to obtain a new ballot if the ballot was spoiled, e.g. over vote. So if a voter intended to not vote for a candidate, the machine would say so and the voter would have to purposely say they weren't voting.