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Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s Secretary of State, had said that he wanted the main count of the recount finished by tomorrow, and it looks like he’ll get his wish. Eighty-five of Minnesota’s eighty-seven counties are done counting, and the last two are both over halfway done.
But, to paraphrase John Donne, when thou hast done, thou hast not done, for there is more. In this case, the "more" is going to be reviewing the ballot challenges and the rejected absentee ballots. (There’s also the question of missing ballots, including 133 in Minneapolis alone.) That will be going on right up until December 16, when the State Canvassing Board meets, and possibly beyond that. That being said, the feeling of accomplishment is still in the air. Most of the Coleman camp’s efforts to muddy the waters seem to have stopped for now. The main question is: Will they try to sue anyone? That’s what could take this into January. But simply pounding the table won’t cut it here.
Meanwhile, there’s an outside chance that Mark Ritchie could be our next Secretary of Agriculture.
Update: An envelope containing fewer than 20 uncounted ballots has been found, but these are NOT the 133 missing ballots from Ward 3. Some now believe that the recount might stretch till Christmas. –Gregg
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Mark Ritchie has his hands full right now.
Also, after the recount is completely over, hopefully Ritchie will be busy recommending changes to improve Minnesota’s election system.
I’d like a law saying that counties must review absentee ballot envelopes as they’re received and contact the voter within 24 hours by-phone-and-mail if there are any issues which might cause the ballot to be rejected.
In this past election, some counties notified voters about issues with their absentee ballots and let them correct the problems. Other counties didn’t even tell voters that their absentee ballots were rejected. That isn’t consistent with the Equal Protection of the Law.
Minneapolis newspaper says that the recount is now over except for the missing ballots..Now it all depends on the challenged ballots…Franken’s team says that if all the challenged ballots go the way the local boards decided, Franken wins by FOUR VOTES!
By Curt Brown cbrown@startribune.com “Except for 133 missing ballots from Minneapolis, the recounting of ballots from the U.S. Senate race is over, and, according to the Star Tribune’s tabulations, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has a 238-vote advantage over Democrat Al Franken, with thousands of ballot challenges pending. “
Star Tribune
Pass the popcorn please.
Four votes.
That’s how many votes the Franken campaign just said they’re leading Norm Coleman by, with the hand recount now officially finished. In other words, with every single precinct in Minnesota now done counting (except for the one where they’re still searching for the missing votes), the Franken campaign is claiming the lead. An extremely slim lead, but a lead nonetheless.
“We are not declaring victory — we are moving into the next stage of the process,” said Franken’s lead recount lawyer Marc Elias, in a press briefing going on now with reporters. “But we are going into that ahead by four votes.”
At the end of this hand count, it’s worth restating a few necessary caveats. The Franken camp’s methodology involves taking down the opinions of the local election officials regarding the challenged ballots, and assuming that the local referees’ calls will be upheld by the state canvassing board. As such, we are dependent on the Franken camp’s numbers and assumptions”
TPM
I hope when we look back on this recount, it will be understood how lucky we are that Minnesota has provided us with the best demonstration possible of the value of the paper ballot.
Our country has been way too complacent in accepting the degredation of our election process by the introduction of electronic voting and the impossible-to-verify systems imposed on us by “false and designing men” (the words of John Adams)
We have only to compare the recount here in Minnesota, where the citizens have the incredible luck to retain a system based on paper ballots, as opposed the poor residents of Georgia, who must accept on faith the word of fools who don’t know or don’t care that no matter how long they search, and no matter how much money they spend, they can never really know for sure how many votes were cast for Saxby Chambliss.
For those who can’t seem to grasp the crux of the issue, we have before us a ‘real-life’ example.
If the recount goes to Franken, the StarTribune will not be the first to report it.
In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if the StarTribune’s head line is something like; “New York Times says Franken wins”
I trust nate’s take better then the franken camp, what does he say?
If Franken wins, Coleman will go completely cuckoo bananas. Hope somebody gets it on video so we can all revel in the moment.
The Franken camp’s 4-vote margin might be close to right, but mostly it’s just spin. I don’t blame them, you have to play the spin game or the Republicans will get the “stolen election” meme going. Anne Coulter’s already going full speed ahead with it.
The officially-reported margin is even less meaningful than Franken’s estimate, though, because it doesn’t include the 6,000 challenged ballots that haven’t been ruled on yet. Most of the challenges, by far, are bogus and will end up being counted. If Coleman made significantly more bogus challenges than Franken did, Franken can win. And then there are the lost 133 ballots and the rejected absentee ballot.
I call it somewhere between 5-4 in Coleman’s favor to 2-1 in Coleman’s favor. Franken’s unquestionably still in the game. Coleman can win honestly, and so can Franken. Both are going to fight for every vote, and that’s as it should be.
What we have to watch for is a Republican attempt to invalidate the election — basically it’s already started at the gutter level with Coulter and others. We have to be ready to get the word out and keep them from pressuring judges and Senators.
If it’s undecidable, the Democrats in the Senate can vote to seat Franken, and if they do, that will be perfectly legitimate. That’s what the law provides and that’s what’s been done in the past.
Everything that’s been done so far is legit, and the election is still undecided. Coleman has not won. He’s already falsely declared victory three times and might well do it again.