Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky refuses to sort Rejected Absentee Ballots

[Eric J in MN]

I heard this on the Mark Heaney radio show on "Air America Minnesota" on Monday night:

The Secretary of State's office has asked the counties to sort Rejected Absentee Ballots into 5 piles.

One pile for each of the four reasons they're supposed to reject those ballots, and a Fifth Pile for ballots which were mistakenly rejected.

However, Joe Mansky is refusing to sort the ballots, on the grounds that he doesn't want to come between the two parties competing for the Senate seat. Only a court should be able to sort ballots, according to Mansky.

Does anyone know how the Ramsey County Elections Manager is chosen?

[Deja Q]

1. No wonder government has a reputation for being lazy.

[Eric J in MN]

3. I don't know what Joe Mansky's story is.

Did he refuse to sort the ballots out of laziness?

Is he a Republican obstructing to try to help Norm Coleman?

Is he so egotistical that he wants to prove that the Secretary of State's office can't make him do something?

Does he really believe what he said that sorting ballots by a county is wrong because it comes between the two parties?

[peacetalksforall]

2. Doesn't want to come between the two parties? Weasel fur?

[Bjorn Against]

4. My guess is that he knows he was throwing out ballots improperly...

Most of the election officials involved in the recount have been doing a great job, but Mansky is the exception to that rule and I do not trust the guy one bit. He has been opposed to any efforts towards transparancy into how the absentee ballots were handled, which would lead me to presume that he has something to hide. I think he knows that there were a number of ballots rejected improperly and he knows that he can't defend it, so he wants to ensure that there is no transparancy because then the questions will not be asked of him.

I would like to be wrong on this, but he seems so determined to prevent any type of transparancy into the reasons for the absentee ballot rejections that I have a hard time believing that he does does not have something to hide.

[Downtown Hound]

5. Hmmm...the county that gave us the RNC police crackdown

Who'd have thought?