Breaking: Franken And Coleman Actually Agree To Count Ballots!
In a major breakthrough in Minnesota, the Coleman and Franken campaigns have resolved that about 900 wrongly-rejected absentee ballots will be counted this weekend, out of nearly 1,350 that the county election officials had initially sorted out.
This is a surprisingly high number. The process set up by the state Supreme Court seemed ripe for abuse, because it required both campaigns to sign off on counting any one sealed ballot envelope. The camps ended up approving quite a lot of ballots in what seemed like a chaotic process over this week. The Coleman campaign did manage to throw another wild card in, though: They're going to court to try to force the inclusion of about 650 ballots that the local officials have rejected, and which seem to be stacked their way.
In a very good sign for Al Franken, 255 absentees were sent out from heavily-Democratic Hennepin County (Minneapolis) alone, and the number of vetoes from the two campaigns were nearly tied there. So expect this particular load of votes to break for Franken, with the remaining question being how the ballots from all the other places work out.
The votes still haven't been counted yet. But from where we stand right now, it appears that Franken is favored to still hold his paper-thin lead over Norm Coleman after the ballots are counted this weekend. But that will just be the result going into the next step: A whole lot of litigation from the Coleman campaign, which could bottle up a Franken win for weeks or even months.
Maybe I'm crazy but I think Franken should have left well enough alone. Since he was ahead, he should have forgotten about the absentee ballots. What if these ballots put Coleman ahead now?
January 2, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then Coleman would be the rightful winner since these ballots weren't counted as they should have been.
It really should not matter who is "ahead" until all the valid votes are counted.
January 2, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
That doesn't make sense. If there is an agreement that these ballots should have been counted, then the campaigns should have NO say over which ones are being counted and which are being excluded.
Right now Franken has a 47 vote lead. If these ballots are legit, then either all 1350 of them should be counted or NONE of them should be counted. If they count none of them, then Franken's 47 vote lead should prevail.
January 2, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why does everyone have the same picture??
January 3, 2009 2:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Groupthink?
BREAKING NEWS!
In less than twelve hours, Spiny Norman will be an Ex-Senator from MN. Current Congressional terms come to an end at NOON EASTERN today, Saturday, January 3.
Even though it'll be 9 a.m. here on the Left Coast, I think I'll pop myself a bit of bubbly!
January 3, 2009 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
some of us have faces fit for radio
(wink)
January 3, 2009 4:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still can't understand the decision by the MNSC to allow the two campaigns to have input in deciding which of the wrongfully rejected ballots will be counted. Seems to me this is an 'equal protection clause' lawsuit waiting to happen. What about the voters who cast a ballot but their vote wasn't deemed worthy of counting by the campaigns?
WTF??
January 2, 2009 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a head-scratcher for me as well. The best rationale I can come up with is if the campaigns have some input on the count they are that much less likely to litigate it later.
Another idea: If the MnSC thought some entity had the implicit authority under existing law to identify and count mistakenly-rejected absentees they would have had that entity do so. By inference, one can conclude that authority doesn't exist, so the court had to come up with something everyone would buy into.
January 2, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I understand it, the Minnesota Supreme Court was trying to obey the technical letter of the law but still be practical.
First, the Court concluded that Coleman was technically right under the letter of the law. Its not the canvassing boards' job to correct the problem of wrongly rejected absentee ballots; that's a instead problem that is supposed to be corrected in court after the canvassing boards finish the recount.
Next, however, the Court tried to be practical. The Court basically said, "Wait a minute. If everyone agrees that these ballots should have been counted then its stupid to leave counting them until a court challenge. If everyone agrees they should be counted, then go ahead and count them. If there is a disagreement about a ballot, though, then its got to wait for a court challenge because that's where this issue is really supposed to be resolved."
At first blush, the Court's decision seemed anything but practical to me. Expecting unanimity from these parties seemed ridiculously idealistic. The Court's faith in the attorneys, however, appears to have been merited.
January 2, 2009 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The State Canvassing Board just wanted to process updated numbers from the counties based on the counties' double-checked "Rejected Absentee Ballots."
The MN Attorney General concluded that they could do so (and didn't say that the campaigns needed vetoes.)
It would have been reasonable to give the campaigns time to sue over ballot inclusion/exclusion they considered unlawful, but not veto power.
January 3, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Calling it "veto power" is kind of backwards, I think. All the rejected absentee ballots are already out at the canvassing board stage. They've all been vetoed already, and the canvassing boards don't have the authority to correct the errors.
What the Court has done is create an extra-legal way to get the wrongly rejected absentee ballots back into the count at the canvassing board stage, but only where there is no dispute that the ballots were wrongly rejected.
So instead of calling it a "veto power", I'd call it an "un-veto power" that depends on unanimity.
January 3, 2009 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
One lesson from Florida 2000 was that whatever is done, should be done the same way for all ballots statewide. No selection of this county here, or that precinct there.
If these 900 wrongly-rejected absentee ballots will be counted then why not all 1,350?
Treat them all the same.
January 2, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
What strikes me as even more staggering is how it's such a close call. Norm Coleman is a sleazeball and it shows in his words and actions.
Where'd you get those suits Norm? What? You don't want to tell us? Tell the truth pal or reliquish your seat.
January 2, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
make norm stop.
January 2, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
That leaves 450 ballots left out. Where did those ballots come from? It looked like Coleman was doing everything he could to only have his votes counted. This is the big question and nobody seems to have the answer.
January 2, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember: Franken was behind in the tally when he initially persuaded the canvassing boards to take a look at wrongly rejected absentee ballots.
January 2, 2009 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. Meant to reply to Steve LaBonne below.
January 3, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Off topic, but this is why this guy is a genius. We have a bright future, finally, with obama running the show. Hopefully, in the future, people will look to smarts in a president, as opposed to whether you want to have a freaking beer with the person.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090102/pl_bloomberg/aovrno0oj41g
Way to save a bundle and put us back in the lead. Go obama! The guy is a genius.
January 2, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Franken is an idiot. His condition for agreeing to this should have been that Coleman must drop all litigation and accept whatever result emerges.
January 2, 2009 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, you say that as if you know what you're talking about.
Yeah, Franken's an idiot. He should have hired you to give him legal and political advice, due to your vastly superior knowledge in both areas.
January 2, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Coleman campaign wouldn't have agreed to sign away their right to sue after the State Canvassing Board finished its work, no matter what the Franken campaign did.
January 3, 2009 1:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
You never know. Coleman has basically lost. It's possible that his people reasoned that they'd do better by gambling on the absentee ballots that seemed more favorable to them than trying to address this in court.
January 3, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Elections now seem to indicate which voters have brain cells connected making the correct choice more than which is the better person for the job.
btw: who ever wanted to have a beer with that guy to begin with?
That was a bubba magnet thrown out by the roveroolala sewage dispenser trolling for every last less than zero.
Try saying you would like to have a beer with thay guy a few times.How do you feel?
January 2, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
While all 1350 ballots were wrongly rejected ACCORDING TO THE COUNTY ELECTION OFFICIALS, the state and the courts retain the authority to hear disputes regarding the ballots. All 1350 were not rejected for the same reason--any sample that large is bound to have lots of diversity. Normally, the procedure for "backing up" and counting those rejected ballots would involve a post election challenge. However, the state Supreme Court has allowed that some, or all, of those ballots could be counted (no one yet knows for whom they were cast) if both campaigns agree.
Let's please stop this simpleton "count them all or count none of them" reasoning because the reasoning behind rejecting these ballots was undoubtedly all over the place.
January 3, 2009 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hennepin County includes the heavily Democratic city of Minneapolis, but it also includes Republican suburbs.
So it isn't clear that accepting 80% of the ballots identified by Hennepin as "Improperly Rejected Absentee Ballots" means a big boost for Al Franken.
That would depend on whether the 20% which won't be counted soon are mostly from Minneapolis.
January 3, 2009 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not saying that I'm thinkin' of havin' a beer with Norm, but I am thinkin' of goin' off of the wagon in about 3 weeks.
January 3, 2009 1:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Enough. There are state standards about what constitutes a legally cast ballot. Count all those first that satisfy those standards, including those with idiosyncracies (doodling, perhaps) but which do not violate the state standards. Then, the big decision is whether to count ballots that had one or more technical things missing (signature, date, whatever) should be counted given that they might have been cast by a real person, but missed one the required clerical "do's". My tack is simple. Count the ones that satisfy the standards, and don't count the ones that don't. Forgot to sign your name. Well, that sucks, and hopefully we'll learn from that next time. However the ballot is not valid. Unless someone can tell me how some ballots might have "kinda" followed the standards, I don't see the need for this continued legal lament.
January 3, 2009 3:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
My understanding is that the law in Minnesota, as in many places, does at least allow (not sure if it requires)that ballots be counted as long as the intent of the voter can be clearly discerned. So that's the legal basis for counting ballots that have some technical shortcomings but where intent is clear.
January 3, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is this taking so long? If this task were assigned as a final exam to a high-school civics class it would be done already. Do these vote-counters have day jobs or something?
Don't you think that one person could go through 1000 ballots, figure out which ones were meant to be for whom, and tally up the results in a weekend? I'm sure I could if I would turn off this damn lap-top!
January 3, 2009 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink