[Ed Note: Now updated at bottom, with Coleman’s attempts to have the state Supreme Court stop the counting, ala Bush/GOP’s FL 2000 playbook.]
We’ve been on the road for several weeks, and haven’t been able to report on the day-to-day details of the hand count of the razor-thin U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D). Happily, the mainstream coverage of the counting has been pretty good (surprisingly so), so we haven’t felt the need to jump in to fill in the untold stories.
But today is an important one, and has resulted in two very key wins today at the State Canvassing Board for Franken, who has recently claimed that he’s up by just 4 votes in the race, presuming that the thousands of challenged ballots (by both sides) are decided by the board the way his team believes they will be.
As of this afternoon, things are looking good — very good — for Franken…
TPM’s additional reporting notes that while the state canvassing board — made up of Republicans, Democrats, and independents — can’t out and out order counties to count the inappropriately rejected absentee ballots, most counties are now doing so, and those that refuse to do so may find themselves in court.
TPM’s conclusion is a very positive result for Franken…
The other major decision made by the canvassing board today is that 133 ballots from a Minneapolis precinct that were counted on Election Night, but have since been misplaced, will be included in the final totals “by going back to the recorded Election Night vote totals for this precinct, sparing Al the loss of a net 46 votes.”
Both decisions, of course, allow Coleman plenty of reason to go to court and try to have the decisions overturned, or even have the election results thrown out entirely.
We’d not put it past him to do exactly that, even though the GOP — which has institutionally been declaring from the jump, without any evidence whatsoever, that Franken has been attempting to “steal the election” — has long been claiming that Franken would try to have the courts decide the race rather than the people.
But the Republicanists frequently charge others with doing exactly what they intend to do, so, at this point, you can rest assured that they’ll be in court pronto, without apology, if they feel it may help their case. The same is true for Franken of course, but so should it be, if, in fact, any process in the election has violated the rule of law or disenfranchised voters.
Our money has long been on Franken to win this one after all is said and done. And it still is.
UPDATE: Like clockwork, the Coleman camp, now said to be ‘desperate because they know they are going to lose,’ according to Franken’s people during a late afternoon press conference today, are heading to court, and pulling a page straight from the GOP’s “successful” FL 2000 play book:
Elias rebutted the Coleman camp’s legal arguments that the sorting of rejected absentees will lack uniform standards, pointing out that the canvassing board handed down a clear procedure under state law.
“The cold reality of where they stand in this count is upon them, and they are desperate to do something to keep these ballots from being counted,” Elias added, according to AP late tonight.
And Eric Kleefeld further reports on the Coleman court filing:
Bad news for Coleman. Good news for MN’s voters, all of whom deserve to have their votes counted and counted accurately.
You’d think the Republicans would give this one a rest. Why steal the election for Coleman only to have him removed for ethical violations.
That would be Dinkytown, an extension of the U of M east bank campus, would overwhelmingly be Franken territory
He’s suffered enough….
Hey Flo, I know what you mean about Minnahoota nice…my daugher’s father is from there. They really are salt of the earth people, must be why Paul Wellstone actually won there! Now, maybe Al will too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Al Capone or I mean Franken…must have honed political skills in Illinois training camps. Another clean state gone dirty. Too bad for America.
Mary McMurry –
What has been “dirty” about the counting in MN? I have seen no such dirt. As we don’t allow knowing disinfo here, according to the commenting rules, please explain any such “dirt”, along with links to evidence, or you will not be allowed to post here in the future.
If anything has gone wrong, I’d be delighted to report on it. If not, and you’re unable to point to any evidence for your unsubstantiated claim, you won’t long be commenting here at all.
Thank you.
Naw, Mary.
Us lefties are just fast learners, watching the thieves in FL in 2000 and figuring out how to neuter them.
and, what do you have against counting every vote, anyway?
Thanks Brad, for all you do and your dedication to the heart of our system. And thanks for personally schooling “Mary” in a polite way.
We may live in a democracy, but this is YOUR website.
Thank you Brad,
What an enormous relief to hear a sane response to the ongoing fictitious hyperbole of the ignorant and fear-locked.
thank you, thank you, thank you,
David Lasagna
It seemed that the breaks were going against Al. That is until the canvassing board ruled. It seems that the canvassing board ruled in such a way as to maximize the probability that the vote will accurately reflects the will and intent of the Minnesota voters. That is both in the ruling to count absentee ballots that were the result of clerical error vice voter error and the inclusion of the votes from the missing ballots. After all, there is a record of what they represent and they can’t be found anywhere else. It would be curious if those votes are just what are required to put Al over. I mean that in the sense that someone knew the count and lost just enough votes to make sure Al lost. Where is the dirt in those rulings Mary?
Also, there are increasing reports of allegations of fund raising improprieties in Minnesota. Not against Al Franken, but against Norm Coleman. Is this the dirt that you are referring to?
Hey mary, have you ever met a flintnapper who knows how to produce a monoatomic edge? I do!
Its all just a big stress line…with some fracturous laugher and tears thrown in.
And to top it all off, this our only world is on the verge of physical and spiritual collaspe. I don’t know about you, but that just don’t work for me and mine.
i thought the picture was interesting in that (if read from left to right) norm coleman’s tie stripes go down & al franken’s tie stripes go up. hmmm…
this picture is worth a thousand & six hundred words.
I was looking more at how Coleman’s mouth goes down and Franken’s goes up. Quite a picture indeed.
Last time I checked, a vote on an absentee ballot is every bit as valid as a vote on an election machine. If the voter’s intent, as defined by Minnesota state law, is clear on an absentee ballot, Coleman has no right to challenge it.
Coleman and Franken are, of course, entitled to dispute the application of state law in determining how an individual voted (or nonvoted) on a case-by-case basis. It is absurd of Coleman to suppress Franken’s right to review these rejected ballots. How would Coleman react if Franken tried to suppress Coleman’s right?
Coleman thinks that if he can just stop the clock while he’s ahead, before anymore ballots get counted, whether they’re the rejected absentee or the mysteriously missing 133 ballots, he can win sort of like what happened in florida 2000.
otherwise, if the votes get counted, there’s a good chance that Franken will win by a squeaker.
I say count all the votes and see what happens.
hell, maybe coleman will win after all, but just count the damn ballots. Most likely most of those rejected absentee ballots were rejected for the flimsiest of reasons, the voter forgot to date the ballot, or used wrong color ink, etc, and should have been counted in the first place.
Hey, what’s the scoop in MN? Do they or don’t they use “provisional ballots” when somebody is told they aren’t on the rolls on election day or at the wrong polling station or otherwise not “eligible” to vote on election day?
All I hear about is absentee ballots that are being rejected?
What about the provisionals? They have been running 3-5% in recent elections, and there’s no reason to think it was any different in MN in November. This is TENS OF THOUSANDS and I’m not hearing about it.
I damn well do NOT want to hear about them from a Greg Pallast or Marc Crispin Miller book next April. I want to know if they exist NOW and whether Al “I believe in the honesty of elections” Franken is doing anything about them. I know that corrupt Coleman won’t be, because provisonals always turn out to skew heavily Democratic.
Does ANYBODY know ANYTHING about the status of provisional (non-absentee) ballots in Minn?