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The City of Minneapolis has decided to call off its search for the 133 missing ballots from the precinct near the University of Minnesota. Actually, they decided to announce that they were calling it off, but they’d already stopped looking days ago:
City of Minneapolis spokesman Matt Laible tells the Minnesota Independent this afternoon that the city didn’t search its election warehouse for the missing ballots any further after Friday. Instead, the city will send Ritchie the precinct’s Election Day voting-machine tape record of votes as well as the city’s recount figures for ballots there that weren’t lost.
Now that this is out of the way, the canvassing board will go on to examine the challenged ballots and wait for the state attorney general’s ruling on how to handle the rejected absentee ballots. As mentioned Saturday on FDL, Houston County has already finished this review, but three other counties — Ramsey, Washington, and Itasca — are balking at doing so, allegedly on the advice of their lawyers. This is surprising as Itasca had already reviewed three absentee ballots that had turned out to be wrongly rejected. Marc Elias, an attorney with the Franken campaign, has protested the refusal of certain counties to sort out those absentee ballots that were rejected for reasons other than the four specified by state law.
As for who is actually ahead, and by how much: The Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, North Dakota is just across the Red River from East Grand Forks, Minnesota) holds with the Star Tribune count that has Coleman leading by 192, but admits that doesn’t take into account the challenged ballots. MinnPost, which was founded and run by former Strib employees, also uses the Strib’s numbers. The UpTake has a "challenged adjusted" lead for Coleman of 97. The Franken campaign claimed earlier this weekend that it was up by four. (That’s right, four. F-O-U-R.) But with several thousand rejected absentee ballots up in the air, and the thousands of challenged ballots still held out of the official recount, right now any claimed lead is pretty much meaningless.
By the way, for all the folks who are wondering "why not just hold a re-vote"? A recent poll suggests that a revote would likely end in a near-deadlock too.
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Go Al!
Yeah, but this time, my brother would be able to vote!!
Thanks for the update, PW. It boggles the imagination that with millions of ballots cast, the outcome could be this close.
Digg it
where is everybody? nothing happening on the previous thread (on FDL) either.
Evening PW. Thanks for the update.
As a resident of Washington County, and long-time Twin Cities resident, I’m disgusted by the actions of Minneapolis as well as the counties refusing to heed the directives from the Secretary of State. Who are these little Napoleons who think their fiefdoms are above the top election official in the state? Ugh.
But mostly, the take-away I got from November 4th is that I’m very disappointed in my fellow Minnesotans. They seem to have really poor judgement when it comes to being manipulated by slick-talking snake oil salesmen. But I guess that’s why we still have that ass for a governor Tim Pawlenty driving our state’s economy into the ground.
Coleman reminds me of the scuzzy guy in some movie who lurks in the shadows and specializes in pimping, selling dope, and blackmail. Sort of a nastier-looking Peter Lorre.
After living on the West Coast for 40 years I learned to recognize the type, but people around here (I’m now in MN) don’t have creep-dar.
NO REVOTE!
Why should Franken give away something he’s already won? He got more votes in this election and EVERYONE knows it. If Coleman thought he won, why would he try to prevent votes from being counted?
I’m sick to death of election officials who can’t handle the basics of their jobs. LOST ballots, more signatures on the rolls than ballots cast, ballots they FORGOT to add in to the totals, tally sheets full of math errors…
Anyone can excuse unintentional mistakes and errors. What cannot be condoned are intentional misconduct, incompetence, or outright refusal to follow the law.
Minnesota is supposed to have a reputation for clean elections and good government. They’re not doing themselves any favors at the moment.
Follow the law, count the votes, count them ALL, and NO REVOTE!
Why should Barkley be included in a re-vote?
Dugg. Thanks for the link.
PW, thanks very much for these updates.
because otherwise it would be a run-off, which isn’t in the existing election law?
IANAMichigander, so pure speculation on my part.
WTF is wrong with election officials who go out of their way to make excuses for not doing their Effing jobs? WTF is so wrong with making sure that no improperly rejected ballots are excluded? WTF is so wrong with counting all the @#!$-ing votes? WTF country am I living in again?
And Michigan actually has some of the best laws for dealing with a close election. What a forking mess.
Thanks for the updates, PW!
FunnyDiva
Is Franken a sore loser or what? It’s time for him to disappear and try harder next time, that is, if he really is serious about his political career. Did Al Gore, who actually won the popular votes, continue to whine about the outcome. The healing must begin NOW!! Those who don’t like Coleman can vote him out the next time around.