Capitol View Category Archive: Recount

Bush v. Gore artifact serves as a reminder for incoming elections committee chair

Posted at 3:14 PM on December 10, 2012 by Tom Scheck (0 Comments)
Filed under: MN Legislature, Recount, Recount 2010, State Government

Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, doesn't need many reminders that voting is important to the nation's democracy. The incoming chair of the House Elections Committee helped shape Minnesota election law after the 2008 U.S. Senate recount. He also watched as the 2010 governor's contest ended up close enough for a recount.

But Simon has something else to look to. It's a Palm Beach County, FL election booth from 2000 sitting across from his desk in the State Office Building.

"It's just a cool artifact of American history," Simon said referring to the presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Simon says some friends found the election stand (which folds up into a brief case) on eBay a few years ago and bought it for him for his birthday. The stand is now a part of his office.

"When I opened it up when I first got it, a bunch of chads flew out," Simon said. "I collected the ones that I could and put them in a little plastic bag and those are, I suppose, formerly hanging chads."

He said it also includes a sample butterfly ballot that confused some voters in 2000.
(For those who need reminding, Palm Beach County was considered the epicenter of the recount between Bush and Gore. )

"It's a reminder to me that elections matter," Simon said. "The stakes are high and we ought to think about that."

Simon and his assistant have to box up the booth and prepare to move it over the next few days. With Democrats taking control of the House and Senate, Simon is moving offices. His assistant joked that she's going to be careful not to lose any chads in the transition.

Side note: Rep. Simon has become a father for the first time. He announced on Twitter that his wife gave birth to a baby girl this morning.

I'm a father! This morning, Leia and I welcomed Hannah Marlen Simon. A real blessing.

— Steve Simon (@RepSteveSimon) December 10, 2012

Election lawsuit targets ineligible voters

Posted at 12:56 PM on February 28, 2012 by Tim Pugmire
Filed under: Recount

Critics of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his oversight of state election law have filed a federal lawsuit aimed at tightening the enforcement of voter-eligibility requirements.

The Minnesota Voters Alliance, the Minnesota Freedom Council and several individuals, contend that election officials have not been following the eligibility criteria detailed in the state constitution. They claim there are still unanswered questions about tens of thousands of people whose votes were counted in 2008 and 2010, when statewide recounts were needed to decide key races. During a news conference today to announce the lawsuit, attorney Erick Kaardal said ballots cast by ineligible voters are "poisoning the pool."

"The Emmer recount contest was flawed, because there was no process after the ballots are counted of these ineligible voters in the election contest of separating out the ineligible voters' votes from those that were eligible," Kaardal said. "This system is designed to fail."

State Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Erickson lost a recount in 2008. She ran again in 2010 and won. But Erickson said questions remain about some of the votes cast in her House district four years ago and about the eligibility of some people who registered at the polls.

"I want to be a part of this lawsuit and ensure that our constitution is honored, and that the secretary of state's office is also honoring a responsibility they have to verify those registrations," Erickson said.

A spokeswoman for Mark Ritchie said the Secretary of State's office was reviewing the lawsuit but did not plan to comment on the pending litigation.

Dayton blames Pawlenty for pending job losses

Posted at 5:51 PM on November 22, 2010 by Tim Pugmire (2 Comments)
Filed under: Recount, Tim Pawlenty

DFLer Mark Dayton says he wants to meet next week with the mayor of Eagan to discuss ways to save the Lockheed Martin plant.

The company recently announced plans to close its Eagan facility and displace about a thousand employees. Dayton told reporters today that he was surprised by the announcement. He said he was also surprised that Governor Pawlenty and other state officials had not done much to try to head off the company's decision.

"Seems to me this is fundamentally a responsibility of Gov. Pawlenty and his administration," Dayton said. "If I'm governor, I'll pick up the pieces and do as best I can from that point forward."

Governor Pawlenty said last week that he would encourage the next governor to consider significant incentives to try to save the Lockheed Martin plant. Dayton's election certificate is pending a statewide recount.

Dayton meets with budget experts

Posted at 3:27 PM on November 11, 2010 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Campaign 2010, Campaign 2010: Minnesota Governor, Recount

Democrat Mark Dayton's campaign announced today that he met with top budget experts on Wednesday. Dayton met with several former Finance Commissioners. The group included John Gunyou, who served under GOP Gov. Arne Carlson), Peggy Ingison, who served under Gov. Pawlenty, Jay Kiedrowski, who served under Gov. Rudy Perpich and Pam Wheelock, who served under Gov. Ventura.

Minnesota is facing a nearly $6 billion projected budget deficit which the next governor (dayton or Republican Tom Emmer) will have to make a top priority.

Dayton released this statement about the meeting:

"Governor Perpich had a quote in his office that said 'none of us is as smart as all of us,' and it will take all of us coming together to solve the budget deficit we're currently facing. As we wait for the results of the election to be confirmed I will continue to prepare for the task ahead, and welcome ideas from all corners of the state. The election is now over and it is incumbent upon all of us to put politics aside and do what is in the best interest of the people of Minnesota."

GOP adds Magnuson to recount team

Posted at 11:31 AM on November 9, 2010 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

Republican Party of Minnesota officials announced today the hiring of former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice and State Canvassing Board member Eric Magnuson as chief litigator for the party and Emmer for Governor.

Magnuson joins a legal team currently headed by Michael Toner. In a news release, state GOP chairman Tony Sutton said he was pleased with the addition.

"Eric is an enormously talented litigator who is independent minded, thoughtful and substantive," Sutton said. "As a former member of the State Canvassing Board, Eric understands the issues at stake during this process. Eric is a tremendous addition to our legal team, and I know he will do his part to make certain that every legally cast vote is counted."

Emmer to hold news conference today

Posted at 6:29 AM on November 9, 2010 by Tom Scheck (4 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

Republican Tom Emmer has scheduled a post-election news conference at 1 pm today at the State Capitol. The news conference will be the first public comments Emmer will make about the expected statewide recount in the governor's race. Emmer hasn't addressed the public or held any interviews since Election Night. Democrat Mark Dayton leads Emmer by fewer than 9,000 votes.

The news conference will come just three hours before Democrat Mark Dayton is scheduled to hold a private meeting with Governor Pawlenty. Emmer met privately with Pawlenty on Monday.

Update: MPR News will provide live coverage of Emmer's news conference.

GOP adds to Emmer recount team

Posted at 11:02 AM on November 8, 2010 by Tim Pugmire
Filed under: Recount

Republican Party of Minnesota officials have announced three key hires to work on the gubernatorial race recount.

In a news release today, state GOP chairman Tony Sutton said Ben Golnik will manage recount operations for Emmer for Governor and the Republican Party of Minnesota. In addition, Matt Kirkpatrick will serve as director of lawyer recruitment and Janet Beihoffer has been named director of volunteer recruitment.

The governor's race is headed to an automatic recount, with DFLer Mark Dayton currently leading Tom Emmer by 8,749 votes.

A feel good meeting?

Posted at 6:12 PM on February 17, 2010 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount, Tim Pawlenty

Gov. Pawlenty and the chairs of the House and Senate Capital Investment Committees met behind closed doors to discuss their differences on the state's bonding bill. Pawlenty is proposing a $685 million bonding bill. The House passed a bill that is just over $1 billion. The Senate passed a $1 billion bill.

After the meeting, DFL Rep. Alice Hausman said Pawlenty told them that the House and Senate bills are too big and need to be scaled back. But Hausman said he didn't give specifics.

"The dilemma is, without clear direction, you sort of end up negotiating against yourself. Unless there's a clear sense that a bill would be signed at "x size" with "x number" of items, there's not a great amount of motivation to, in a sense, negotiate with yourself."

Hausman said Pawlenty also complained that the bill included too many local projects like the Scott County Training Program and the Merit Training Program in Marshall.

When asked if Pawlenty gave them any information that they didn't know already, both Hausman and DFL Sen. Keith Langseth said no. Langseth called it a "feel good meeting" and said he was happy with the size of the Senate bill. He said Pawlenty rarely goes above his asking price in negotiations.

"The problem has been the one-man show thing. I got a 53 to 13 vote. I put a lot of Republican things in there. What he's done with the line-items then is line-item the Democratic stuff. I'm fair and he isn't."

Pawlenty's spokesman Brian McClung said Pawlenty called the meeting to give Hausman and Langseth direction on the bill. McClung repeated the Pawlenty Administration's stance that the bill is too large and shouldn't borrow more than $725 million. He stopped short, however, of saying whether Pawlenty would veto the bill outright or line-item veto the projects he doesn't like.

"You can't just go out and slap together a bill that spends a billion dollars or more and run around and be Santa Claus to everybody and send a bill to Gov. Pawlenty and ask him to be Scrooge."

McClung also said Pawlenty wants to see more bipartisan support for the bill (15 Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it) but didn't offer specifics when asked what "more bipartisan support" meant.

Both Langseth and Hausman hope to reach a House/Senate agreement on the bill by the end of the month.

Coleman's Harvard speech

Posted at 1:47 PM on November 18, 2009 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Campaign 2008: U.S. Senate, Campaign 2010, Campaign 2010: Minnesota Governor, Recount

Former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman gave a speech last night to John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University. You can listen to his speech here:

Listen

The speech originally aired on MPR's Midday.

Biden comments on recount

Posted at 5:03 PM on May 6, 2009 by Mike Mulcahy
Filed under: Campaign 2008: U.S. Senate, Recount

Al Franken and V.P. Joe Biden met privately in D.C. today. After the meeting Biden's office issued this statement:

"The election process and recount in Minnesota have lived up to the state's reputation for organization, transparency, and bipartisanship. The officials have been meticulous and every ruling has been unanimous. While Sen. Amy Klobuchar is one of the hardest working members of the United States Senate, Minnesotans deserve their full representation. Once the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued its final ruling in this case, the President and I look forward to working with Mr. Franken on building an economy for the 21st century."

And Franken issued this:

"I deeply appreciate the administration's ongoing support and the opportunity to meet with Vice President Biden today. Minnesotans are eager to see Congress make progress on the administration's agenda - and I'm eager to do my part in that effort. From investments in alternative energy to the expansion of high-speed rail to the Twin Cities, we have a lot to do to help Minnesota's working families, and I was pleased to discuss these important issues with the Vice President."

ENPR: Some Republicans quietly hoping Coleman gives up

Posted at 3:59 PM on January 14, 2009 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

The Evans Novak Political Report said in its latest issue that some Republicans are quietly hoping Coleman gives up his fight. Here's the synopsis from the conservative group:

Minnesota: Both sides continue to fight in the razor-tight Senate race, but the tension is subsiding as it increasingly appears inevitable that the Democrat will be seated.

When comedian Al Franken (D) asked Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) to certify him as a winner, Pawlenty said no, pointing to the state law that prohibits the governor and the secretary of state from declaring a winner while an election contest is ongoing. The Democratic secretary of the state has agreed with Pawlenty. Franken has gone to the state supreme court to appeal this application of the law.

Coleman, meanwhile presses forward with his contest of the election results. While possible improprieties were many and the canvassing board's nearly unanimous record of coming down in favor of Franken looks suspect, it's hard to see how Coleman could come out ahead. Indeed, some Republicans are quietly hoping Coleman will give up the fight.

In the meantime, Minnesota has only one senator. Democrats in the upper chamber haven't shown a rush to seat Franken, seeing his eventual certification as imminent.

Meanwhile, a group of Republican voters held a news conference today to say they intend to file a lawsuit calling on the courts to ensure no double counting occurred.

MPR's Curtis Gilbert also analyzes whether the election was stolen.

How fast is absentee voting growing?

Posted at 12:43 PM on January 8, 2009 by Tim Nelson (2 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

I got an email overnight challenging Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's assertion that absentee voting had doubled in the 2008 election, compared to 2006. "Derek of Eagan" called it an "apples to oranges" comparison, since 2006 didn't have a presidential candidate on the ballot.

True enough, but it wasn't half the election, either.

So here's what the actual percentages look like, looking back to 2000. It isn't doubling every election, but there's pretty steady growth.

It was SRO(utside) the Coleman announcement

Posted at 3:38 PM on January 6, 2009 by Tim Nelson (1 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

It wasn't just the conference room in the State Office Building that was packed for Norm Coleman's announcement that he was planning to contest the November election in court. Even the hallway outside was standing room only.

"I think half the Republicans in the state are here," quipped one of the onlookers, peeking though the window from the hallway to watch Coleman's announcement.

Something to do while waiting for a new Senator

Posted at 4:03 PM on January 2, 2009 by Mike Mulcahy
Filed under: Campaign 2008: President, Recount

MPR's Tim Nelson sent me this time waster. It's got a shelf life of about 18 more days.

Cornyn talks Minnesota recount

Posted at 1:15 PM on January 2, 2009 by Mike Mulcahy
Filed under: Recount

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters today that Republicans will filibuster any attempt by Democrats to seat a Senator from Minnesota before the recount and any legal challenges are resolved. Here's the audio from his conference call:

Listen

Coleman campaign wants changes in absentee ballot process

Posted at 2:39 PM on December 31, 2008 by Mike Mulcahy (5 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign sent a letter today to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office and Democrat Al Franken's campaign ripping the process currently underway to identify wrongly rejected absentee ballots. Coleman attorney Tony Trimble writes the process is not working and will result in "an invalid and unreliable election result" unless it's changed.

The Coleman campaign originally asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to prevent the inclusion of improperly rejected absentee ballots in the recount or to set up a uniform standard to identify them.

The court ordered the campaigns and secretary of state's office to work with local elections officials to identify the ballots.

Trimble says in his letter that the process has broken down, and that "confusing and inconsistent directives and demands have confounded our county/city election officials."

He then proposes a plan to fix it:

...we propose that: the envelopes and supporting materials for any and all absentee ballots identified by the Franken campaign, the Coleman campaign, the Secretary of State and the county and local election officials be sent to the Secretary of State's office by Friday. At that time, the campaigns and the Secretary of State will review the materials and determine pursuant to the Supreme Court's order which absentee ballots were indeed wrongly rejected. Those ballots will then be counted by the Canvassing Board at its scheduled meeting

The board is scheduled to count the ballots on Saturday and then deal with any further challenges Monday and possibly Tuesday. At that point the recount would in theory be over.

No response yet to the letter from the Franken campaign or Mark Ritchie's office.

Court grants extension on rejected absentees

Posted at 10:27 AM on December 24, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

The Minnesota Supreme Court has granted an extension to count the wrongly rejected absentee ballots. They basically agreed to the Secretary of State's timeline.

Harry Reid's office weighs in on the new Senate timeline...

Posted at 3:55 PM on December 23, 2008 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has set a new timeline for the recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race. He said there isn't any way that they'll finish their work before the end of 2008 and may even still be working to declare a winner on January 6th, the same day the Senate will swear in its new members. I called the spokesman for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to see if the Senate was ok with the process. Here's how he responded:

"It's perfectly acceptable for us to just wait to seat somebody until somebody is certified by the state."

He also dismissed any notion that Gov. Pawlenty could appoint someone. He said the Senate would have to declare a vacancy first which he said the body is unlikely to do.

Franken team reacts to Coleman suit

Posted at 12:12 PM on December 19, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Here's the Franken campaign reaction to Coleman's latest petition to the Minnesota Supremes:

SAINT PAUL [12/19/08] - Communications director Andy Barr:

"This is just the latest desperate act by a campaign panicked because it has suddenly realized that it is going to lose the election. The two campaigns and the Secretary of State agreed on a deal at the insistence of the Coleman campaign. The Coleman campaign then used that deal to prevent us from making challenges in counties across the state. And now that they realize they are going to lose, they are once again running to court to try to change the rules and disenfranchise hundreds of voters based on a theory they invented and cannot support with any real evidence."

FLASHBACK: Email from Coleman attorney Tony Trimble (11/19):

"We believe that duplicate ballots should be counted if no corresponding original can be found, as this was a ballot cast on election night. A challenge to a duplicate ballot for which no original can be found is a frivolous challenge, because it does not relate to voter intent. Any challenge to a duplicate ballot should be made within an election contest and is not within the limited jurisdiction of an administrative recount. We will request the Minnesota State Canvassing Board to reject any challenges to duplicate ballots as groundless and frivolous (if the same are brought to the Canvassing Board)."

###

Coleman going to court over duplicates

Posted at 11:10 AM on December 19, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

The campaign for Republican Norm Coleman is headed to court over the issue of duplicate ballots in the recount (UPDATE: Here's the petition). The State Canvassing Board rejected Coleman's plea to have certain ballots thrown out at this morning's hearing. Several members of the board said the best remedy is the courts, which Coleman's campaign is now following. Here's the release:

ST. PAUL - In a petition filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court today, the Coleman for Senate campaign has requested the Court to prevent the Minnesota State Canvassing Board from including double-counted votes in its recount totals. The petition seeks to have precincts which now have more votes than voters reconcile their ballots so that the Canvassing Board's numbers are accurate. The campaign also asks that the Court imposes the vote totals in these precincts as recorded on Election Night if the originals and duplicates cannot be reconciled. The campaign further asks that this reconciliation process be part of the process the Court ordered yesterday for improperly rejected absentee ballots. That process must be completed by December 31.

Minnesota law requires local election officials to make a duplicate ballot if an original is damaged during the election night counting process. The officials are supposed to mark all such ballots as "duplicate" ballots and to segregate the original ballots which were damaged and therefore not counted on election night. The problem arose during the hand recount when duplicate ballots could not be found to match the originals because election officials had not marked them as duplicates on election night. The precincts challenged as part of this action are ones where BOTH the originals and duplicates were tabulated in the recount, as evidenced by there now being more votes than voters in those precincts. The effect is that some voters have had their vote counted twice.

The Coleman campaign last night proposed that the campaigns agree on a method for resolving these obvious errors. The Franken campaign rejected the proposal. According to Fritz Knaak, lead attorney for Coleman for Senate, it was hoped that both campaigns could have reached an agreement on this issue and prevented the need for court action. The Canvassing Board members have acknowledged an error with the count, but they said today they lacked the statutory authority to reconcile the obvious errors. That led to the Coleman campaign filing this action with the Minnesota Supreme Court.

"We are disappointed the Franken Campaign would not join us in finding a resolution to this serious problem. Unfortunately, without that resolution, the State Canvassing Board has made it clear they will have to count some Minnesotan's votes twice. This means that millions of other Minnesota voters are being disenfranchised by the influence of hundreds of duplicate ballots that simply should not be counted. We respect the decision of the Board Members who have said that without an agreement by the campaigns they are powerless to remedy this matter. In order to ensure the integrity of the final results of the recount, the Canvassing Board must be provided clearer direction by the Supreme Court that such double-counting not only violates the Constitution, but also the sole purpose of the Canvassing Board which is to certify a recount only of the ballots counted on election night and not certify numbers which result in more ballots being counted than persons that voted on election day."

Canvassing board weighs absentees again

Posted at 9:34 AM on December 12, 2008 by Tim Nelson (2 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2008: U.S. Senate, Recount

10:58 AMCleary admonishes campaigns to keep withdrawing "frivolous" ballot challenges. Meeting adjourns.

10:55 AM Discussion is winding up. Consideration of challenged ballots is scheduled for December 16 through 19 and the board seems to be ready to take the various reconsiderations, of both absentee and challenged ballots, as they come.

10:48 AMCanvassing board starts discussion on a second motion, outlining how the Canvassing Board will consider the corrected returns if wrongly rejected absentee ballots are found and counted.

Magunson suggests to do so is putting the cart before the horse and says it would be better to wait until some of those returns are available. Clearly says it would be bad faith to ask them to reconsider with out a guarantee that the canvassing board would accept the results.

"I don't like making a decision I don't have to make," says Anderson.

10:35 AM Motion passes asking county officials to separate properly and allegedly improperly rejected absentee ballots. Magnuson repeats that the canvassing board can't compel this action. Vote is unanimous.

10:27 AM Ramsey County District Court Judge Ed Cleary says he's inclined to include the improperly rejected absentee ballots. "We do not have authorities to make findings of fact or conclusions of law on the absentee ballots rejected for reasons...Those that have improperly been rejected are uncounted ballots... The bottom line is that I think we're disenfranchising voters that followed the law."

Magnuson suggests that the state courts may be a better place to consider this, since judges can issue orders and assess penalties to make these considerations happen, whereas the canvassing board cannot.

Gearin says she can't understand why a county wouldn't reconsider if the canvassing board asks. "If the local people, in the trenches, if they made a mistake, then that vote should be accepted."

Anderson weighs in and says he's inclined to go along with Cleary's suggestion to ask these ballots be reexamined and reconsidered by the canvassing board. He says there are some ballots rejected without any indication at all that they were in fact rejected. But he seems to be saying he thinks the courts ought to eventually weigh in.

Ritchie rephrases the motion. Cleary offers some clarification. County canvassing boards reconvene, separate rejected absentee ballots into properly and improperly rejected ballots.

10:20 AM Attorney General Lori Swanson says she believes the canvassing board has the authority to recommend local elections officials reconsider their wrongly rejected ballots and correct their vote totals. Ramsey County District Court Judge says some counties seem to have done that already and that the Canvassing Board will have to weigh in on this whether they like it or not.

10:16 AM Gelbmann says that officials in Duluth report that many absentee ballots were rejected because the witness to the absentee vote did not date their signature, but an administrative review of the law seems to indicate that they didn't have to date them.

10:15 AM Deputy secretary of state Jim Gelbmann offers a summary of the situation of absentee ballots that may have been wrongly rejected, through no fault of voters. He says 49 counties have completed their supports, that 3 have sorted but not reported their results and 24 should sort out rejected ballots next week.

So far, 4,023 absentee ballots have been re-examined and 638 have been determined to have been wrongfully rejected. That works out to about 13 percent of all disqualified ballots have been wrongfully rejected.

That's even higher than the 9 to 10 percent Mark Ritchie was estimating earlier this week. That would work out to about 1,587 wrongfully rejected ballots out of 12,000 statewide.

10:08 AM Board votes unanimously to include the 133 missing ballots from Minneapolis in the official vote total.

10:07 AM Supreme Court Justice Eric Magnuson lauds elections officials, says there is no evidence to show the canvassing board should not accept the vote total results Reichert has offered and moves to do so.

10:05 AM"We believe there was 2,028 ballots fed into the counter machine that night," Reichert says. She says the roster shows 2,030 signed in, but that people do occasionally leave without actually voting.

10:00 AMReichert asks canvassing board to use election night totals, rather than hand recount with missing ballots. Attorney General Lori Swanson summarizes the legal situation. She says the canvassing board has the authority to use the election night returns, in her opinion.

9:56 AMAgenda moves to missing ballots from Minneapolis' Ward 3, precinct 1.

City election director Cindy Reichert takes to the witness table to talk about the missing ballots. "We thought as we went through the process... that they would come up," she said. They called the chief election judge at the polling place, but got no further indication of what happened.

A search went though spoiled ballot envelopes, ballot receipt envelopes, but found nothing. Search turned to an audit of the voting statistics, and a second search of the elections warehouse on Dec. 4.

"We determined definitively that the ballots were missing," says Reichert. The custodian at the polling reported he didn't find anything. Search expanded to City Hall, a van used to transport elections materials. Another warehouse search was conducted on Dec. 5.

9:45 AM Ritchie is proposing adding votes from withdrawn challenges to the existing vote total, ahead of the consideration of the challenges next week. Chief Supreme Court Justice Eric Magnuson seconded. Approved.

9:40 AM State elections director Gary Poser earlier reported 3,594 challenged ballots. The number has grown since then, to 6,655 challenges. There have been several thousand withdrawls, and now Poser says 4,472 challenges remain.

9:34 AM Mark Ritchie just announced that the crowd is at capacity in the Capitol's Room 15. Standers will have to watch a video feed in the cafeteria.

Ritchie on Midday

Posted at 8:57 AM on December 5, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is on MPR's Midday today at 11. It's the final day of the recount. I'm sure he'll also get a few questions about the missing votes in Minneapolis.

A recount veteran offers some advice to Franken

Posted at 8:49 AM on December 5, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire spoke to Al Franken about the recount. Gregoire had to endure a long recount process herself in 2004.

Missing in Minneapolis

Posted at 5:01 AM on December 5, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

The search is on for 133 missing ballots in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Elections Director initially said the ballots weren't missing. Now she says they can't find them. The Secretary of State's office says they have until December 16th to find the ballots.

The recount was supposed to be finished today....

Question: Where's Norm Coleman? Attorney: Out of the way.

Posted at 6:08 PM on December 3, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Norm Coleman's campaign attorney was asked today what role Coleman was playing in the recount. Here's Fritz Knaak's response:

"He has largely stayed out of the way and done largely Senatorial things and left the recount to the recount team. I haven't been directed to do anything by him. I haven't been told not to do anything because of anything he has said. I have been pretty much been given free reign to do this as needs to be done..."

Easy come, easy go for Franken...

Posted at 6:03 PM on December 3, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

The recount in Minneapolis has found that the ballot is 133 votes short of the votes counted on Election Day. Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert said she believes elections officials in the precinct ran some ballots through the machine twice. Campaign officials say Franken lost 36 votes. Franken's campaign says the explanation doesn't make sense and want Elections officials to keep looking. Franken spokesman Andy Barr says the campaign's numbers now show more people signed in to vote at the precinct than there are ballots recounted there.

The latest development comes one day after Franken picked up 37 votes after ballots were found in Ramsey County.

Meanwhile, Franken's campaign is withdrawing a fifth of its challenges (633). Republican Norm Coleman's attorney said he intends to wait until the recount is over on Friday before they start withdrawing their challenges.

Meanwhile, more ballots to examine!

The cheese stands alone....

Posted at 7:58 PM on December 2, 2008 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

Minnesota is the cheese now that GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss has been declared the winner in Georgia's runoff.

Question(s) of the Day: Do the Democrats take the foot off the pedal in Minnesota now that they can't reach 60 Senate seats? What does this mean for Minnesota's Senate contest?

Discuss...

The challenged ballots

Posted at 5:33 PM on December 2, 2008 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

There has been a lot made about the disputed ballots in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race. The Secretary of State's office released the first batch of about 1,000 yesterday afternoon. A team of dedicated MPR news folks examined each and every ballot and found that many of the challenges were frivolous.

You can play election judge yourself (Round two) here.

You can take a look at all of the challenged ballots (from the Secretary of State's office) here.

For the record, both campaigns say they intend to reduce the number of challenged ballots (which is inching closer to 6,000) before the State Canvassing Board starts going through the ballots on December 16th.

Ramsey County finds ballots

Posted at 2:28 PM on December 2, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Ramsey County elections officials found 171 ballots that weren't counted on election night. On MPR's Midday, Ramsey County Elections director Joe Mansky said the ballots were found in a machine that broke down on election day. He said the machine was replaced but the ballots weren't scanned through. The Associated Press is reporting that Democrat Al Franken picked up 37 votes from the newly found ballots.

Mutally Assured Frivolity?

Posted at 8:57 AM on November 26, 2008 by Tim Nelson
Filed under: Recount

The Coleman campaign this morning offered an "olive branch" in the recount, after what they said was a sharp spike in challenged ballots in Sherburne County.

Actually, they used the word "debacle".

"The day ended last night with over 700 ballots challenged in this one county alone," said Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan this morning, noting that the number included BOTH campaigns. "We've told our folks that frivolous challenges cannot be the order of the day," he said. "But we can't unilaterally commit to stopping."

It was sounding a little like recount detente.

Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak even added a little more to the Reagan-esque "trust but verify" atmosphere: "This is the recount version of mutually assured destruction, you know. And it's going to be interesting in terms of diplomacy to figure out... I think the expectation is at some point here the campaigns are going to have to sit down and ferret out the more significant challenges from the ones that aren't."

MPR's Mark Zdechlik asked him what percentage of the ballot challenges were "non-meritorious."

Knaak "Hard to say. We're handicapping that as they come in. I don't have a percentage."

Zdechlik: "Is it the vast majority?"

Knaak: "I think a lot of them are on both sides. But again, that's decisions being made by people on the ground, that's the reason why we have our review process, and hopefully they do too. We look and we evaluate. We don't look. We don't fault, we don't blame."

Zdechlik: "What does 'a lot' mean?

Knaak: "I would say a majority, certainly, as we look at them on both sides, as we're looking at it now. But again, we're scrutinizing these carefully on both sides, and again it's up to the [canvassing] board."

Treasure trove of votes or Capone's vault?

Posted at 1:46 PM on November 25, 2008 by Tom Scheck (2 Comments)
Filed under: Recount

The attorney for Democrat Al Franken said today that he was growing more concerned about "missing ballots." At a news conference, Marc Elias explained that "hundreds of ballots" have gone missing across the state. He also pointed to this picture that shows that there is still paper in a voting machine in Minneapolis. Elias said he isn't sure if the piece of paper is a ballot, several ballots or something else. He said they won't know until elections officials open up the machine, which he says they're reluctant to do.

Question of the Day: Do you think this could be a treasure trove of votes or Al Capone's vault?

Coleman on the recount

Posted at 4:44 PM on November 20, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

GOP Sen. Norm Coleman held a conference call this afternoon to talk about the recount. The Weekly Standard writes about the details:

The recount began yesterday. Counties will continue their work over the next week. Some may not conclude until after Thanksgiving. But a lot more information will be available after today. Coleman noted that Minnesota has 4130 precincts. 4112 have newer, more accurate optical screener machines. In all of the precincts where the optical screener machines were in place, very small to no changes occurred in the early recount (2-5 votes swings some for Coleman, or the same number for Franken, but no real appreciable net changes).

Minnesota, also has 18 precincts with older, less accurate machines. In the counts taken in those areas yesterday, Coleman lost a net 28 additional votes.

Coleman estimates that as of now he's ahead by roughly 170 votes. Many of the big Republican counties have not yet conducted their recounts, according to Coleman. The Minnesota senator sounded upbeat about victory at the end of the day and concluded with a fitting hockey metaphor: "We're on the ice and its time to put the puck in the net."

I asked Coleman's campaign why Minnesota media wasn't told about the call. Coleman's spokesman Mark Drake said the call was supporters only. When pressed he said that his guess is that a supporter probably tipped off the Weekly Standard about the call.

Franken on recount

Posted at 10:41 AM on November 14, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Recount

Here's the audio from Al Franken's interview on Midmorning.

Listen

The (Re)Countdown--what could happen?

Posted at 10:24 AM on November 7, 2008 by Tim Nelson
Filed under: Campaign 2008, Campaign 2008: U.S. Senate, Recount

For now, Minnesota's U.S. Senate race is looking to set a record as the closest election in the history of that legislative body. A 355-vote margin in New Hampshire's election in 1974 is the current record.

That one wound down to a truly memorable finish. After two recounts in New Hampshire and more than six months of deadlock at the U.S. Capitol, the Senate declared New Hampshire's senate seat vacant on August 8, 1975. That was 276 days after the polls closed. Democratic challenger John Durkin and Republican incumbent Louis Wyman squared off again in a September re-vote.

But in the Watergate era, it proved extraordinarily difficult for the Republican incumbent. Wyman's Democratic challenger, John Durkin, took the seat by 27,000 votes.

That's not how it is likely to play out in Minnesota, though. How about this for a doomsday scenario?

The state has a vacancy law (204.D28) that deals with precisely such matters, and it has come into play several times. The first was in 1976, when U.S. Senator Walter Mondale was elected Jimmy Carter's vice president. Gov. Wendell Anderson resigned and had his successor, Rudy Perpich, appoint him to the vacant seat. The political maneuvering effectively ended Anderson's political career. The second case was in 2002, when Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash and Gov. Jesse Ventura appointed Dean Barkley to the Senate.

Here's the relevant part, though: If a recount of this year's election stretches into January, either the state courts or the U.S. Senate (which is the ultimate arbiter of the election of its members) could declare Minnesota to have a vacant senate seat. That would trigger the state's vacancy law, which allows the governor to appoint a senator.

The law makes a crucial point here: "An appointee shall hold office until a successor is elected and qualified at a special election or until a successor is elected." That means that come January 3rd, 2009, if the matter still hasn't been settled and the election's victor declared, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty will be theoretically able to appoint a U.S. Senator (likely a Republican) who will serve at least until Nov. 3, 2009, when another election is held and a winner "qualified." Which is to say he or she gets a result certified by the state canvassing board and the seven day contest period expires.

According to Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky, who long served in the Secretary of State's office, that would make for a term of office ending Nov. 25, 2009. That would make for a 325 day senate term -- presuming Pawlenty doesn't appoint incumbent Norm Coleman.

And here's where the real trouble comes. If, say, the Republicans successfully argue to a state judge on January 3 (or shortly after) that the undecided election amounts to a vacancy in the office, they could effectively nullify this week's election. Minnesota's vacancy law doesn't have a look-back provision. Even if the election were subsequently settled, the law doesn't apply a past election to a vacancy that has already been filled. Filling the vacancy would automatically trigger a do-over in the next November.

Presumably, that would only occur if it looked like Coleman were trailing or in a bad legal position.

And state law wouldn't stop Al Franken from going to Washington, D.C., telling the secretary of the Senate that he is the real victor and asking the Senate to seat him, without an election certificate. That would presumably spark a debate in the U.S. Senate over whether the seat is vacant and touch off Lord only knows what kind of a political struggle between Washington D.C. and St. Paul.

In short: even a recount might theoretically leave this year's Senate race unfinished.