Officials find Smart automobile, month-old bread loaf, along with uncounted ballots in Ramsey County voting machine.

Not really. I lied. I made up the bread and auto part. The ballot part - who made that one up?

MPR reports it as true.

Election officials discovered 171 ballots that were not counted on Election Day and Democrat Al Franken picked up an extra 37 votes once all the new ballots were tallied.

St. Paul, Minn. — The 171 ballots were found in Maplewood's 6th Precinct. Ramsey County Elections Director Joe Mansky said they found the ballots in a voting machine that broke down on Election Day. He said the machine was replaced but the judges forgot to feed to feed through the new ballot counter.

"The 171 ballots were already in the ballot box, so those votes did not get recorded on the tape that we were using," Mansky said.

Mansky said the ballots were always secure and were not lost. When the votes were tallied, Al Franken gained 91 votes from the batch, and Norm Coleman picked up 54 votes.

[...] Finding the votes so late in the process concerns the Secretary of State's office. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann said on two occasions his office urged local elections officials to account for all of the ballots before they started their recounts. Gelbmann wants to know why the mistake happened and why it took so long to catch. He also wants Ramsey County to make sure the number of people who voted in that precinct matches up with the number of ballots cast.

Okay. Same post, MPR also reports:

Scott and Wright counties will start recounting their votes in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race today. With just three days until the recounting is expected to end, 93 percent of the vote has been recounted. The campaigns for Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken have challenged 6,000 ballots.

Better call ghost busters, if they have to open up any more voting machines. Who knows what in those counties might be found? Stolen cargo, Somali pirates, bones and maps to buried treasure - we can only guess. Perhaps some lost Georgia runoff ballots, perhaps all for Martin, enough to cut the Chambliss lead to 56.5%?

STRIB this morning carries the AP feed on the Chambliss win, and its own item on Franken's fight for you and me aganist the dark side of the force.

Here, on Chabliss. Here, on the saga of the ex-entertainer against the ex-campus radical, ex-DFL mayor, present friend-of-Nasser. No analysis here, you can read the mainstream. Or better, read MPR Polinaut online, here, it's better than Strib, ya betcha.

Polinaut poses the question [don't comment here, comment there, it's his question and he's got greater readership]:

Question(s) of the Day: Do the Democrats take the foot off the pedal in Minnesota now that they can't reach 60 Senate seats? What does this mean for Minnesota's Senate contest?

You fight for every seat. With a very low Georgia turnout [it's unduly cold there these days] and with Chambliss' percentage so high, you have to figure the insider party polling was forecasting that outcome - light turnout, high GOP percentage, so that the speculation that Obama stayed away believing he could not energize any differing result and would only weaken his mandate by showing up in person and trying to energize a Martin win and failing, looks to have truth to it.

As President Elect, why step into a meat grinder if you know there's no foreseeable up side? Why mis-step when you can walk the pasture carefully and keep your shoes clean? He's nobody's fool, after all.

Is anyone these days energized by the Obama appointments? Clinton redux? Eight-year-old leftovers? We wait, we hope, we later see.

The Clinton presidency, for much of its time, was constrained by the dark forces holding Congress. Obama has a brighter cloud over his head at the start, but like Carter he inherits a GOP-screwed-up-eight-hundred-and-ten-different-ways economy, and will be blamed for the mess four, eight years hence. People are that way.

Chambliss wins Georgia. All over by 10 pm.

Georgia Secretary of State, screenshot during Gopher basketball halftime, from here and click the image - 57% is a stomping:



__________UPDATE____________
I suppose retiring the "60 medallion" pic is appropriate. This is the morning after, first cup of coffee, and it is Saxby for Georgia - a fit, for Newt Gingrich land.

Detail from Georgia's GPB blogs is here and here.

Al Franken can make it 59, and then the wingnut fringe of GOP Senate membership will have to be nice to the moderates, so that nobody "Jeffords" away, just as the Dems must be obsequious to prevent Lieberman from "Liebermaning" away. Being obsequious to Lieberman is easy, just mirror the man and behave as he does. It's his manner, if not his position holding the hammer as Snowe and Collins do on the GOP side, so that Maine and Connecticut should each get an above average share of pork.

So, middling pressures, that I can believe in, but change is looking more and more remote as something where it is unwise to spend a lot of belief for a diminishing expectation.

What a world.

Susanna Capelouto of GPB posts of Martin expressing optimism in defeat:

But Martin said his race was not in vain. Georgia Democratic party officials say this election season has seen their party re-organized and energized. They hope to make real inroads in the 2010 elections.

I hate to say it, but with Chambliss at just under 58%, that's having blinders on as much as the GOP theocrats basking in the light emitted, in their eyes, by Sarah Palin. It's really not there, but somebody says, "I see it." Wanting to see it is like me wanting to have had Franken be number sixty. I admit, it is not there - people in the Senate do switch, Jeffords did, Lieberman teetered, but it is still going to be yet more of the lobbyists visiting a lot, and the auto moving down the yellow line on the highway with Obama driving, not really in the leftmost lane.

But if valid and extensive change were in the cards, would he have been electable within the Dem.party, the party of too many Elwyn Tinklenberg clones too plentifully positioned? So it likely is folly to expect national movement in a Wellstoneian way. Even when truly wanting to to see Obama drive the highway eight years in a Wellstone way, I cannot see it as being there. He could surprise me, but I am a skeptic unwilling to bet money on that surprise happening. Rather I'd bet on a miniscule difference from the Clinton years as something I can, given appointments so far, believe in.

I found this GPB post interesting:

Chambliss' mantra on the runoff campaign trail was simple: His re-election was critical to prevent Democrats in Washington from having a blank check. Chambliss, 65, had angered some conservatives with his vote for the $700 billion bailout of the financial services industry and his early support in 2007 for the guest worker provision in President Bush's immigration bill. But fearful of unchecked Democratic dominance, some came back into the GOP fold Tuesday

Martin made the economy the centerpiece of his bid, casting himself as a champion for the neglected middle class. He also linked himself at every opportunity to Barack Obama and his message of change. The Democratic president elect was a no show on the campaign trail in Georgia but did record a radio ad and automated phone calls for Martin.

In the end, Martin, a 63-year-old former state lawmaker from Atlanta, wasn't able to get Obama voters back to the polls in large enough numbers to overcome the Republican advantage in Georgia, which has become an increasingly a reliable red state since 2002.

Turnout was light throughout the state Tuesday. A spokesman for Secretary of State Karen Handel predicted between 18 and 20 percent of the state's 5.75 million registered voters would cast ballots - far less than the 65 percent who voted in last month's general election.

The runoff between the former University of Georgia fraternity brothers was necessary after a three-way general election prevented any of the candidates from getting the necessary 50 percent.

It should make the GOP regulars happier than the Wellstoneian Democrats to see that analysis, which unfortunately seems to resonate as truth, to me.

COUNTDOWN TO SIXTY. GPB has streaming radio updates starting 8 pm on the Georgia runoff, and they've a blogger site (or two).

For those wanting to track the Georgia returns this evening, I received one email reply, from Georgia Public Broadcasting, stating,

"You can check out GPB news blog on our webiste, [see also second GPB blog, here] or you can tune in on line at the top of each hour starting at 8 pm for our 6 minute updates on the race."

The GPB blog post for this morning echoed the coverage news:

Voting is underway across Georgia this morning in the runoff election. There is much national focus on how the U.S. Senate race will play-out, and whether Democrats might get a step closer to the magic mark of 60 seats. Also to be considered by voters at the polls today--runoff races for a seat on the Public Service Commission, and an opening on the Court of Appeals. There are also various county commission, school board and other local office races to be considered depending where you are in the state. State elections officials remind voters to bring a photo ID to the polls. Precincts will be open until 7 o’clock tonight.

We invite you to join us on GPB Radio tonight starting at 8pm--we’ll have updates at the top of the hours on Georgia’s runoff election with our reporters in the field at candidate headquarters. You can also get all the latest on Georgia election news anytime at our website blog page: gpb.org/election.

I think that last link is a bad link; again, the two blogs are here and here.

Finally, in defining options and areas of appeal to Georgia residents, Saxby Chambliss of the odious swift-boating style had Sarah Palin visit to work the core group. The GPB blog posted this news yesterday, "hip-hop royalty," performer Ludacris, appeared for Martin (who is the one at the podium-microphone in the photo - click to enlarge).



It is outdoors, a cool time in Georgia, and the podium people do not look like Chambliss supporters. Too young, too informal, too black.

May Martin become 59 of sixty.

For a contrast, here's GPB's blog pic of Chambliss, from here, with "Ms. Spot-and-face-the-camera-by-instinct" in tow, cropped from the original, but showing part of the supportive white folk they attracted.



________UPDATE________
Gary Gross emailed another tracking link, here. The Georgia Secretary of State has results here.

Our Secretary of State's Dec 1 posting has Franken ahead on raw count. Good analysis from two Brit sources, the Bay Area, and Jason Leopold from DC.

The image is from the Economist, which online today reported:

SEVERAL weeks have passed since his stunning victory in the presidential election and Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches to his cabinet. Yet two Senate races from America's general election remain undecided. Georgia is holding a run-off on Tuesday December 2nd; Minnesota is expected to complete a recount and release a new tally by the end of the week. As things stand the Democrats (including two independent senators who caucus with the party) will have 58 Senate seats in the new Congress that starts work early in January, the most held by any party since 1979-81. If they were to win the two outstanding races they would reach 60, the magic number needed to stop a filibuster (in theory anyway).

In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent, won 49.8% of the vote on November 4th, just short of the 50% required by state law to avoid a run-off. In the late summer Mr Chambliss looked like a shoo-in; some polls gave him an 18-point advantage over his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin. But the financial crisis turned even this deep-red state a shade of purple (John McCain won it by just five points).

In November Mr Martin was able to capitalise on voters' anger with the Republican Party and on Mr Chambliss's support for the $700 billion government bail-out package for America’s troubled financial institutions, which remains deeply unpopular with many conservatives. Mr Martin opposed the bail-out and has lambasted Mr Chambliss for saying that he trusts the “folks in the financial community” to use the funds wisely.

The run-off on Tuesday will probably be close. Mr Chambliss has a small lead in the polls. Stars from both parties have gone to Georgia to campaign for the candidates, including Bill Clinton and Al Gore for Mr Martin. John McCain and Mitt Romney have thrown their weight behind Mr Chambliss and on Monday Sarah Palin, still a star turn for the Republicans, will appear at four rallies. Mr Obama has not visited, although an 11th hour appearance could help Mr Martin enormously; blacks made up 28% of the electorate in November's Senate race and their support is crucial if Mr Martin is to stand a chance.

Minnesota's Senate race is a messier affair. The tally in November gave Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent, a tiny lead of 215 votes (0.007% of the electorate) over Al Franken, his Democratic adversary. This triggered an automatic recount, which should be completed by the end of the week. The latest estimate, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, gives Mr Coleman a 282-vote lead with 88% of the ballot re-counted.

Mr Franken was dealt a blow last week when the state canvassing board said it did not have the authority to review absentee ballots that have been rejected on technicalities, of which there are some 12,000. The board has asked Minnesota's attorney-general for advice about whom, if anyone, should review those ballots. Both sides are also challenging about 3,500 ballots and are threatening to take the matter to court if the recount doesn't go their way. The canvassing board hopes to certify a result by December 19th.

These Senate races have particular significance to Democratic activists. Mr Coleman won his seat in Minnesota in 2002 after the incumbent, Paul Wellstone, a revered figure on the progressive wing of the party, died in a plane crash two weeks before the election.

But the Democrats will find it particularly satisfying if they unseat the Republican in Georgia. Mr Chambliss also won his seat in the 2002 mid-term elections, during which the Republicans pummelled the Democrats on national security. Georgia's Senate race was very nasty. Max Cleland, then the incumbent, was a Vietnam war hero who lost three limbs in military service.

The Republicans ran a highly controversial ad linking him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The Democrats made sure to remind voters about this when John McCain visited Georgia recently to stump for Mr Chambliss. It had always seemed improbable that the Democrats could secure the magic number of 60 Senate seats. Now that the prize is within grasping distance they are doing all they can to cross the line.

Another good British write-up is Telegraph, "Republicans battling to shackle Barack Obama's reforming plan," as the headline.

That item is online, reported here.

It would be refreshing to see this Georgia ultra-negative Saxby Chambliss individual get a comeuppance. The name sounds like somebody named after a Confederate general somewhere in the geneology, treasuring stars and bars, all that.

I recall a year of grade school in New Orleans, at ten years old, something about a coin sized medal some carried, R.U.A.K on one side, I.M.A.K on the other. Now I see that Chambliss and Coleman have one thing in common, two sides of one thing actually, each being very GOP, each very favored by the NRA. So go figure.

It would be poetic justice for Max Cleland, were Chambliss to fall with Martin being number 59, in the countdown to sixty. Chambliss was truly odious in running against Cleland and the final wrap-up to this post is a quote indicating he's a leopard not changing his spots.

With the most expensive Senate race ever, ours in Minnesota, still hanging fire, (and that's most expensive not even counting the added extensive recount costs), we appear headed for the canvassing board certifying the recount as a mere intermediate step, with ultimate decision making left for the Courts and/or the Senate.

The Democrat-led Senate holding the hammer is something Coleman folks are really whining over, but it's the law, they have the Constitutional authority to say who is to be seated.

And the Coleman folks are a campaign of whiners Phil Gramm would be able to identify with, whiners who've kept a constant high-pitch whine going almost, not quite, sufficient to drown out the questioning afoot about what did Nasser Kazeminy buy, and what motive had he to assure it was purchased in installments.

Kazeminy comes across as a careful man, not plunging into things full lump-sum up front. He appears to know what insurance & other services he likes, wants, and how to pay in installments for it.

While that Georgia thing's to be tomorrow's big news of the day, presuming there's no razor thin margin there also after the balloting to complicate the hoped-for Chambliss exit, the Minneosta Secretary of State now shows, 91% counted, that of those precincts counted Franken now has the current raw count lead (click to enlarge and read):



MPR and the Public Record [Jason Leopold] analyze the Senate holding the hammer, Leopold commenting at length about the posture and possibilities.

Finally, the closing screenshot followed by the closing quote, are taken from a quite longer post from the Bay Area's beyondchron.org and it features pics of the four players in the unfolding make-it-to-60 drama that is dragging on just a bit too long for most folks.



And there's more:

But anyone who knows Saxby Chambliss could see how he’d capitalize on white racist fears to get re-elected. Even before November, Chambliss noted that a high black turnout in early voting (an Obama-effect that clearly helped Martin) “has also got our side energized.” After he failed to get 50% in the general election and a December run-off was called, Chambliss complained to Fox News that “our folks” didn’t turn out enough.

In the run-off, Chambliss (who’s had the financial edge) has accused Jim Martin of letting children die when he ran the state’s Department of Human Resources – and the Republican Party has charged him with condoning child prostitution. The reason that’s so offensive is that one of Martin’s daughters was kidnapped when she was eight years old, but it’s the same kind of swift-boat attacks we’ve come to expect.

What a dirt bag. May he become as retired from office as Gingrich now is, and may the two of them stay retired.

PiPress Opinion: Protecting Boundary Waters wilderness — challenges persist

This editorial, extensively excerpted:

By Kevin Proescholdt
Updated: 11/28/2008 07:13:06 PM CST

Thirty years ago this fall, President Jimmy Carter signed the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) Act into law. While this law provided important protections for the BWCAW, it did not address all challenges in protecting the area for future generations.

That's how it's been all along in the effort to protect the Boundary Waters wilderness — progress is difficult, and it happens in stages.

A compromise provision in the 1964 Wilderness Act (the law that provided statutory protections for wilderness areas and established the National Wilderness Preservation System) singled out the Boundary Waters for continued logging and motorboat use, practices normally not allowed in areas so protected. This provision made the BWCA a wilderness in name but not necessarily in management.

As a consequence, a series of controversies erupted in the late 1960s and early 1970s over mining, logging, snowmobiling and motorboating in the BWCA. By the mid-1970s, Congress again turned its attention to the canoe country to try to resolve the controversies. The resolution did not come quickly or easily.

After a very public three-year debate, Congress finally passed the 1978 law after a number of weakening compromises made in the House and Senate. Led by U.S. Reps. Donald Fraser and Bruce Vento from Minnesota and Philip Burton from California, this law ended logging in the BWCA (and protected the remaining 540,000 acres of unlogged forest), reduced (but did not eliminate) motorboat use, phased out snowmobiling (except for two short access routes to Canadian properties), tightly restricted mining within the Boundary Waters and established a BWCA Mining Protection Area outside the wilderness, officially added "Wilderness" to the area's name, and expanded the area by about 68,000 acres in key additions like the Hegman Lakes, Brule Lake and the Fowl Lakes.

That helped, but threats to the area's wilderness character persist. Motorboats still run across about one-fifth of the BWCAW's water surface area. On two wilderness portages, jeeps and ATVs drive across along the trails hauling boats. Mining was not absolutely forbidden, and new proposed sulfide mining projects just outside the Boundary Waters pose major threats from acid mine drainage. Global climate change may significantly change the BWCAW's ecosystem. Ecosystem processes like fire are not always allowed to fully function without human manipulation. Excessive visitation at times threatens the area's solitude and wilderness character. Despite the law, illegal motorboat and snowmobile use still occurs. And the remaining roadless areas in the Superior National Forest, most of them along the periphery of the BWCAW, are threatened with road-building and logging.

In 2001, the federal government finalized the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect 58 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in our National Forests nationwide, including about 61,000 acres in the Superior National Forest here in Minnesota. But the Bush administration threw out the roadless rule and instituted instead a state-by-state petition process. Various federal judges have ruled both for and against the original roadless rule and the Bush plan, leaving both approaches in legal limbo.

Protected roadless areas have great value in their own right. They provide some of the best fishing, hunting, hiking and remote camping areas. They harbor fish and wildlife and blocks of undisturbed forest often not found in logged areas and those with roads. They offer opportunities for scientific study and research, and they safeguard sources of clean drinking water.

In the Superior National Forest, roadless areas provide additional benefits because of their proximity to the BWCAW. Roadless areas help preserve the BWCAW itself by blocking negative impacts like invasive species or traffic noise from reaching the wilderness; they provide wilderness-like recreation when the BWCAW is at visitor capacity, and they provide the primary source of lands that might one day be added to the BWCAW.

Kevin Proescholdt directs the Wilderness and Public Lands Program for the Izaak Walton League of America. A former BWCAW guide, he helped pass the 1978 law through Congress and co-authored the definitive book on that struggle, "Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness."

_______________
May 2008 BWCA camping photos from here. As always, click to enlarge.

Georgia On My Mind. Tomorrow, Dec. 2, is the runoff Senate election there, between incumbent Saxby Chambliss (R) and challenger Jim Martin (D).

click to enlarge

With the 60-vote filibuster proof Senate at stake in Minnesota's Franken-Coleman recount as well as in the Georgia Senate runoff election, and with the Georgia uncertainty set to be resolved tomorrow, Dec. 2, Georgia is on my mind.

For song info, see here, or to sign the petition, go to rayontheten.com and for lyrics, trivia, and downloading the ringtone, here.

I am unsure of the best way to monitor the Georgia returns tomorrow, and if I can pin down a good tracking source I shall put it in an UPDATE at the end of this post. I have a few emails out to Georgia media and the Georgia Secretary of State, and if I get any reply check for info on it via an UPDATE.

The Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) Blogger outlet had this to say:

Monday, December 1, 2008
U.S. Senate candidates' final push today

It is the final push for the Georgia U.S. Senate candidates, with the runoff election ahead tomorrow. Democratic challenger Jim Martin spent weekend time in Macon, Savannah and Columbus. While in Columbus, Martin appealed to veterans who live in the area. Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss attended the Georgia-Georgia Tech football game Saturday in Athens--on Sunday, he appeared on Fox News Sunday to make his national case.

Last night, Chambliss welcomed Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to Georgia with private fundraisers in Atlanta. Today, Chambliss and the former vice presidential candidate will hit four cities in Georgia, starting with Augusta this morning. They'll move to Savannah, Perry, and metro Atlanta afterward. For Martin, he’ll campaign with civil rights leaders in two statewide stops today--Augusta and Macon, and then return to Atlanta with a State Capitol rally alongside hip-hop star Ludacris.

Get all the latest with Georgia election news by going to our website: gpb.org/election

Posted by Edgar Treiguts

The Jim Martin campaign site is here.

The Saxby Chambliss campaign site is here.

About Jim Martin, here. Martin's runoff election info, here; Jim's blog, here; Martin's news updates page, here; and for endorsements and coverage, see e.g., here, here, here, here and here.

Further coverage, here:

Georgia Runoff Election This Tuesday - Chambliss/Martin Race Crucial to U.S. Senate Balance
Minnesota's Coleman and Franken Also Still Vying for Important Seat
By Sheryl Young, published Nov 30, 2008

With the Alaska U.S. Senate seat now decided (Republican incumbent Ted Stevens finally conceded to Democratic challenger Mark Begich), the Democrats now hold 58 seats of the crucial 60 needed to become a "super majority", preventing any type of Republican negotiation power in the Senate.

There are two Senate seats still to be decided. The Georgia Senate Runoff Election, to be held this Tuesday December 2, is the most critical race in the country. Incumbent Senator, Saxby Chambliss (R), hopes to defend his seat against opponent, Jim Martin (D).

The other open seat is the Minnesota race between incumbent Senator Norm Coleman (R) and first-time runner, comedian Al Franken (D). This election result is in a recount and may not be decided until mid-December.

How close is the Chambliss/Martin race? A Thanksgiving week Mellman Group poll for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee shows Chambliss leading Martin by only 2 percentage points - 48% to 46%. But a conflicting Public Policy Polling Survey from the same time period from shows Chambliss at 52% and Martin at 46%.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, President-elect Obama has left 25 of his Georgia field offices open for Martin, including in-state paid staff, and about 100 field operatives from other Southern states have been sent to help Martin's campaign.

Michael Reagan, radio host, author and son of President Reagan, has joined with the National Republican Trust PAC (Political Action Committee) in endorsing Chambliss.

Georgia Public Broadcasting reports that the latest FEC filings show Jim Martin has raised $2.4 million to Chambliss' $1.9 million in October-November to support their bids for the seat.

There's much linked coverage, and these brief blips on the two candidates, here:

Saxby Chambliss

Chambliss was elected to the Senate in 2002 after being elected to the House in the 1994 Republican revolution. He is a lawyer who earned his legal degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law after graduating from the University of Georgia.

Jim Martin

Martin grew up in Georgia, and studied at the University of Georgia. He is an Army veteran and a lawyer, and also spent 18 years in the Georgia State House. He was also head of the state’s Department of Human Resources.

myfoxatlanta.com has coverage, here, here, here, here, here and here.

CNN has Georgia up-to-the-runoff coverage, here; and for coverage and the left side picture of one disgustingly whining individual within Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners," and his story of how he relates to Minnesota-recount and Georgia-runoff, here. I agree with Schumer, they should stop their whining aimed at intimidating whoever, just, please, stop (although if this one pictured whiner "worked into a lather" he must have cleaned up a bit for the photo-op).