Big Surprise: Franken And Coleman Failing To Agree On Which Ballots To Count
So will any of the wrongly-rejected absentee ballots in Minnesota, which have been the subject of copious litigation between the Franken and Coleman campaigns, actually get counted? The latest report from the Star Tribune suggests it's going to be a rough time over the next few days, with the Franken camp calling for 1,346 ballots to be counted, while the Coleman team thus far wants to include...136.
The thing to remember here is that the state Supreme Court released a bizarre opinion a week and a half ago, calling for these ballots to opened up and and counted -- but only if both campaigns agreed that an individual envelope was wrongly rejected. So if the Coleman campaign vetoed 1,210 ballots, then only their 136 will be counted -- that is, unless the Franken campaign were to retaliate by withholding consent from those, too, until more votes are added to the pile.
It should be pretty obvious what's going on here: The Coleman campaign is trying to cherry-pick ballots that they believe will be good for them, based on where the ballots are from, and that they think could be favorable enough to undo Al Franken's lead of 47 votes. The Franken camp, meanwhile, wants to count the whole pool of votes. And in addition to upholding the principle of counting every vote, it should be noted that the entire set of wrongly-rejected absentees is believed to favor Franken.
The deadline to get these ballots counted is January 4. After that, any attempt to get them counted will have to be done in court through a post-recount election contest, which has a burden of proof favoring whichever candidate has already been declared to be ahead.
Coleman loses his credibility with every action he makes. His desperation is palpable. It's pathetic. 136 votes out of almost 1,400? It's obvious that he's cherry picking.
Didn't the Minnesota Supreme Court decision have a clause to ensure that if such a thing took place, it would have consequences? Or something like that...
Maybe Coleman could get away with it if he only wanted say... 500 to 1000 of the votes counted. But 136? It's just way too obvious. It's like Coleman isn't even trying to be subtle.
December 29, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
There may or may not be an at-least-superficially plausible argument for counting only 136 of the wrongly dismissed absentee ballots. Given Coleman's record to date, the smart money would be on the "not". But either way, it seems like a curious tactic, given that it allows Franken to say: "OK, fine. I won't agree to any of YOUR absentee ballots either, and I still win by 46 votes." If only from a PR point of view, it seems like it gives Franken an easy out. He's the one who's ahead, after all.
My guess is that Coleman knows there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that only his 136 cherry-picked absentees will be counted. He just manuevering to make sure NONE of them are counted, so Franken doesn't widen his lead enough to make is "double counting" hypothesis moot before this thing even gets to court. And he's willing to take the PR hit because he doesn't really have any other options.
December 29, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
It appears that Coleman's team offered a proposal that they knew that Team Franken would have to refuse.
So the Friday deadline comes, the SOS certifies the recount as it now stands without the inclusion of the wrongly excluded ballots, and then Coleman files suit saying that those voters were wrongly excluded.
December 29, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the he rolls the dice on the inclusion of all of them. Bad idea, Norman.
December 29, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
EXCELLENT NEWS!!!
!!!COLEMTNUM™!!!!
December 29, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
!!!COLEMENTUM™!!!! too.
EXCELLENT NEWS FOR NORM!!!
December 29, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Letting the candidates have a say in what votes get counted is insane. I can't believe the court did that. And why should they have any say in it to begin with? The court should have assigned someone (the State Election Board?) to review the unopened ballots. All of those that met State regulations, and were wrongly rejected, should be counted and added to the final re-count total. What's so hard about that? And why didn't they do it? Were they trying to anticipate appeals by the candidates, and felt that making them part of the process would eliminate those appeals? God only knows.
December 29, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. The court and the other powers that be seem to have forgotten that this is about the will of the people of Minnesota, not about the will of the candidates or their respective parties.
December 29, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that it's bizarre, but I seem to remember that the problem was that the State Election Board didn't have the authority to decide anything about the status of those ballots; thus the formulation for having the candidates and the board all come to some mutual agreement about the ballots that should not have been excluded.
But yes, that is simply an invitation to game the system, and since that's all Coleman has at this point, it's no surprise, Norm being Norm, that that is what he is going to do. Let's hope the Minnesota Supremes slap him down hard.
December 29, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The State Canvassing Board and the MN Attorney General both agreed that counties could amend their totals to include previously Rejected Absentee Ballots, and that the new totals could be used.
It was only the MN Supreme Court which said that pre-certification, both campaigns have to agree on each ballot envelope before it's opened.
December 29, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I say count all the ballots. Let the chips fall where they may.
December 29, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
IIRC the SCOMN said that if they find that either side was not cooperating appropriately they would sanction them in some way.
What they wanted was to see if both sides had the interest of the actual public will and every vote to be counted.
Now it appears Coleman has punted and said we have nothing to lose since we lost so they are challenging the SCOMN and looking for something to go to the SCOTUS.
What would be good is that the SCOMN fully sanctions the Coleman camp and orders the counting of all ballots or none at all.
December 29, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
SCOTUS and SCOMN both sound like private parts.
December 29, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a list of how many "Improperly Rejected Absentee Ballots" have been identified by each county?
December 29, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine, then Norm. Since you can't agree to count all the ballots, lets just forget about it and certify the number we have right now.
December 29, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, TPM, get the story emphasis right...
Isn't the real point that Norm Coleman fails to agree with most people in the state he claims to represent... including the majority of Minnesota voters, election officials, local and state canvassing boards, and the Minnesota Supreme court?
Norm is radically out of touch with the voters in Minnesota... This senate race stopped being a case of "he said, he said" several weeks ago.
December 29, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
In this case the focus is more on the very predictable outcome of the court's decision to give politicians veto power over whether to count votes, an outcome that I was predicting when this decision first came down.
But I did make sure to explain what Coleman is attempting.
December 29, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't want to be too critical, Eric...Generally your stuff is great; thanks for the coverage of the MN race!
Perhaps the headline and lead-in should lay the issue more squarely on the MN Supreme Court decision? I believe the justices made a very poor decision; essentially they invited, nay charged, both campaigns to enter the process and uphold Minnesota election law in good faith, for the public good...
For the most part, only one campaign has showed up thus far... (How many days later?)
December 29, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tried to warn you Norm, they're just giving you enough rope to hang yourself. Don't do it! Bow out gracefully. You're gonna need big bucks to fight the indictment coming your way. How are you going to raise that money if you show everybody, even Republicans, what an a-hole you really are?
December 29, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just glad we have a Dem in Minnesota who doesn't fear a media backlash when he fails to roll over and play dead, and instead is fighting for his seat with everything he's got.
More democrats like Al Franken, please.
December 29, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd assume that Franken's people will be going back to the Minnesota Supremes with a brief explaining why Coleman is not acting in good faith and requesting a remedy. I'd go with criminal contempt, but that's just me.
December 29, 2008 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink