In November I voted for Democrat Heather Keeler for MN State House 4A and she won. I live in Moorhead, MN, across the river from Fargo, ND. The Republican, Edwin Hahn, has filed a lawsuit disputing the election results. The county attorney calls it “frivolous,” because it is. I imagine the same thing is happening all over the country; this is just one of many stories. According to the attached article, here are the facts:
- The article says approximately 18,436 ballots were cast. I think this was the count on election day. The MN Secretary of State website and Ballotpedia both say there were 20,271 certified votes, with Keeler winning 57-43%. The Democrat won by a whopping 14 points. It wasn’t even close.
- In district 4A, there were 13,807 applications for absentee ballots of which 12,587 were accepted. I haven’t been able to find out how many of those were actually returned.
- Apparently, at least one absentee ballot wasn’t counted. Some guy named Kowalski filed an affidavit saying he mailed in an absentee ballot and it wasn’t counted and he should have been notified that he didn’t vote. Is he serious? I don’t think anyone gets notified when they don’t vote. Maybe he didn’t mail it. Or maybe he did, but it arrived too late. Or maybe the post office lost it. Whatever. Even if his story is true, a single missing ballot doesn’t justify invalidating an entire election.
- Another frivolous claim is that the election observers and “the public” weren’t allowed to observe the counting of absentee ballots because there was a six-foot rule. That’s a COVID-19 rule that requires social distancing. The Republicans are saying every Minnesota absentee ballot in 2016 was “witnessed” by observers and absolutely zero ballots in 2020 were “witnessed.”
- Therefore, the Republican – and remember, he lost by 14 points – is asking that the court allow the citizens of the county to “inspect all applications, registrations, balloting materials, machines, processes, voter rolls, and many other key elements” of the election. I’m not sure how you examine a process.
Also, a local right-wing radio talk show in Fargo has claimed there were “abnormal trends in election data.” Whatever that means. I think it’s fake news. It’s just some old white guy shouting at the rain.
I remember four years ago when I was told, “Trump won the election. Get over it.” And now it’s time for Republicans to realize the shoe is on the other foot. Time to admit that the voters have spoken – in the District 4A election all the way up to the Presidential election.
I’m sure that there are now people in my town believing that the Democrats committed fraud and that this election was illegitimate.
Here’s the article (from a Bemidji paper, because the Fargo paper has a pay wall):
Moorhead Republican candidate for state House challenges election results