Wardere, a paid staffer in Norm Coleman’s office whose title is listed as constituent policy liaison, was called in by two GOP challengers at the site after they told an election judge they wanted to bring in their own translator. Wardere remained onsite for at least four hours.

Minnesota statute 204C.06, regarding conduct in and near polling places, states that “no one except an election official or an individual who is waiting to register or to vote shall stand within 100 feet of the building in which a polling place is located.” Fraser says that if Wardere was there throughout the afternoon and not aiding an individual voter with translation, then it’s possible laws were broken. “That is up for the county attorney to investigate,” Fraser says. “And I do not have all the facts. But if that happened, then potentially laws were broken.”

What’s more, the GOP conceivably violated election laws by at one point having three challengers as well as Wardere on site. After being asked by an election judge to leave, Wardere told the Minnesota Independent that neither he nor the election judge were certain if his role at Brian Coyle was to act as GOP challenger or translator. Wadere did not leave the building, and instead remained in the foyer or entrance of Brian Coyle Center for most of the afternoon. He later told MnIndy that he was only there to help voters with language issues. One GOP challenger, whose counterpart called in Wardere to act as their translator earlier that morning, refused to speak with MnIndy about allegations of voter intimidation or Wardere’s role at the site.

“Only one challenger from either party can be on site at one time,” Fraser says. And according to Minnesota statute 204C.07 regarding challengers, “[Challengers] shall not converse with a voter except to determine, in the presence of an election judge, whether the voter is eligible to vote in the precinct.” If Wardere spoke with voters while he was acting as a challenger, this is also a potential violation of the law, Fraser says.

As MnIndy reported on Tuesday, voters charged that translators on site were persuading voters to vote for Norm Coleman. According to another Minnesota statute regarding voter assistance, 204c.15, “A voter who claims a need for assistance because of inability to read English or physical inability to mark a ballot may obtain the aid of two election judges who are members of different major political parties.” And it goes on to say, “An election judge or other individual assisting a voter shall not in any manner request, persuade, induce, or attempt to persuade or induce the voter to vote for any particular political party or candidate.”

The Secretary of State’s office responds to written complaints, Fraser says, which are then forwarded to the county attorney’s office for investigation. So far, the SoS has not received complaints in writing regarding conduct at the Brian Coyle Center.

Its Coleman’s staffer that is accused of campaigning inside a polling place- illegal as all hell. She is accused of telling Somali after Somali to vote for Coleman and ‘helping’ them do so. If this is true, then Norm Coleman is in real trouble. Having your staff strong arm voters in polling places is like, criminal.

Mikey’s post without reason informed us that the staffer was on ‘vacation’ so, doing whatever he wanted on his time, not the Senators.
——

Also, you accusing of Chestnut of being on the same side as me is- its just crazy. You got a scorched earth policy with everyone who disagrees with you.

what you trying to say brother?

Maybe we should be looking into the Green Party-promoted idea of instant runoff voting for future elections.

They were called and informed that Somali voters were being told to vote for Norm Coleman. Some of these Somali men, were at the Obama campaign rally for Franken. So naturally they made calls.

I wonder how many were told to vote that way before she got busted?

What ol’ Mikey was doing here is called pre-emption. This wasn’t about the Klobuchar aide but, trying to give cover to the Coleman aide in light of tomorrow’s story.

Also, since he was on vacation, he really wasn’t working for Coleman at the time. Officially.

HAhahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!

Don’t worry cupcake, I understand you are incapable of comprehending that. Now run and get me some coffee, no Hemlock please.

Michael, if you read this, i’ve heard Coleman is asking for help to maintain the “integrity” of the recount. If true, who do we call?

To you Dems, integrity means HONESTY

If you have evidence that he was doing something illegal or at least unethical, ok.

Helping with translation is neither.

Mike Erlandson was Chief of Staff.
Congressional Chief of Staffs are the only staff position that can work the political side as well as the governing side.

(For those who don’t know, there are two staffs, one is the taxpayer funded positions in DC and the home district, the other is political side fundraising and during various political activities on behalf of the member. Their pay comes from the campaign donations. The Chief of staff is the only one allowed to go back and forth.)
Erlandson volunteered his entire six years as Chair. He never received a dime from the DFL in his role as Chair.

As far as the A-Klo’s staffer, Mikey needs to bring more info.

If this staffer was the Constituency Services person, then translating is one thing they’re already paid to do. Helping at the polls is not ‘campaigning’ as noted earlier. There is one partisan for each party officially sent in the polls. A person translating is not necessarily working outside of the taxpayers realm.

The other possibility is that the staffer was part of the political staff, which means its on the campaigns dime, not yours.

There is the potential for “politicking” but a Klobuchar staffer has too much of a future and that is a super heavy democratic district anyway.

The real danger is of immigrants not yet naturalised trying to vote by voucher. You used to have to know english to get citizenship.

Two years ago a co-worker talked of long lines at the Couth Minneapolis Central voting precinct. A very large number of Somalis were trying to vote without ID’s.

Naturalised immigrants are encouraged to vote but every naturalised immigrant I have ever met wears their naturalisation paperwork as a badge of honor. I’ve heard from a number that were shocked when an ID wasn’t asked for at the polling place. When they went to vote they brought all the paperwork and were disappointed when not asked for it.

It’s difficult to invalidate votes at this stage but comparing voters in that area with naturalisation or natural citizen status might be revealing.

ACORN has been shown to be indiscriminate about who they sign up.

The payroll records for U.S. Senate staff are public records. You could cross-check the name of the employee against yesterday’s date to see if the employee was in pay status or vacation status. Depending on when the current pay period ends you may have to wait a few days before those records are available, however.

BTW, this reminds me of the case of one Mike Erlandson. He wore two hats: Chief of staff to Cong. Sabo and chair of the MN DFL. It was not unusual to see (via the media) Erlandson holding a press conference in the middle of the day while wearing his DFL chair hat. If the fellow took vacation days, he must have had about 52 weeks of vacation each year given how much time he seemingly spent on DFL/campaign activities.

I tried to get Ron Carey’s predecessor interested in taking a look at this. Unfortunately, that fellow made Carey look like a Rhodes Scholar. He had as much interest in pursuing whether a taxpayer-paid staffer was doing non-taxpayer activities on the taxpayers dime as a hog is interested in holy water.

I’ll be interested to see what the situation was on this one.

If you got some evidence that the later points happened, then let’s talk about that. Beyond that, this is far and away the dumbest MDE post ever.

And so I felt compelled to say so.

Thanks for the explanation. With the $800 billion bailout being signed off as though it were chump change, this seems like a very weak issue to even bother posting.

I googled the center to find out what it was and came up with:
“In addition to the programs run by Pillsbury United Communities, a number of other organizations operate out of the Coyle Center, including the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota, Emerge Community Development, and Pan African Legal Aid.”

So, we are supposed to be concerned that a government employee is helping with translations on election day?

Michael should have described what the problem was because I still don’t see it.

Michael’s ability to see only the good in republicans and only the bad in democrats is what sets him apart from rational human beings.

Klobuchar staffer helps with translations
Coleman staffer helps with voters

My question: What’s the BFD?