Minnesota Independent

Déjà vu meets snafu at recount Ground Zero

By Chris Steller | 12.05.08 | 4:56 pm

Minneapolis Precinct 1, Ward 3 is now the latest and greatest Ground Zero of messed-up election practices to be exposed during Minnesota’s statewide recount in the U.S. Senate contest between Democrat Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. It’s there, in the Dinkytown neighborhood on the edge of the University of Minnesota campus, that poll workers recorded 133 more votes than they have ballots to show for it. It’s also there that students trying to vote via Minnesota’s same-day registration process last month were turned away — in a re-run of a major snafu at another campus polling place during the last general election two years ago.

Screw U: University students turned away from polls on Election Day

By Chris Steller | 11.25.08 | 5:11 pm

As of Tuesday night, Hennepin County officials had yet to recount ballots from Minneapolis’ Precinct 1, Ward 3. But when they do, there likely won’t be as many ballots to count as there were voters who tried to cast them. Residents of a student cooperative on the University of Minnesota campus weren’t able to register at their polling place this year like they did in past elections. The problem: Election officials would not accept the same kind of proof of residency they had in the past. It remains unclear how many students were turned away — and whether their votes could have an impact in the stil up-in-the-air U.S. Senate race. Video and more after the jump.

Independence Party’s 3rd CD candidate, David Dillon, among nation’s top self-funders

By Chris Steller | 10.08.08 | 12:44 pm

UPDATED Well, they do call it the Independence Party. It turns out the party’s candidate in the 3rd Congressional District race, David Dillon, has donated a considerable sum of his own money to his campaign through Sept. 2: $122,000. That’s 81 percent of his campaign’s $150,513 war chest, which according to a fresh report from the Center for Responsive Politics’ opensecrets.org, makes Dillon the eighth biggest self-funding candidate for the U.S. House or Senate this year, by percentage of total money raised.