As we might expect, some dirt and dust is getting into the recount machinery (or judging from a couple stories, somebody may have dropped in a piece of lutefisk) as we come up on the 3/4 pole. Light-fingered shenanigans! Shouting and tears in the recount room!
Please feel free to recommend this diary as an OPEN THREAD for MN recount news. Post your comments, on the scene reports, LTEs, bar chats, pix & videos, rants and hopes; all are welcome. (We had a precinct report yesterday from Woodbury. That's the kind of base an entire tower of a diary can be built on! Thats what I'm talkin' about!!)
Hat tip to Voice of America for a powerful set of maps and charts. Tomtech added a nice roundup of recount news from Otter Tail County and the North Crow River News among others. denisegreenbay added a thoughtful take on the Reichwing's interest in this race.
So.....to the Orange ballots....and beyond
The Handy Links for you:
MN Sec. of State Website: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/...
Star Tribune Almost Real Time Recount Map thingy: http://www.startribune.com/...
New Media links:
The UpTake (includes videos): http://www.theuptake.org/
Minnesota Publius: http://mnpublius.com/
Last Diary in this Series: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Minnesota Public Radio has pictures of some of the disputed/questionable ballots so you too can play election judge: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/...
Monday While I was at Work Updates
- Trouble in Recount Paradise Part I.
A small story catching on a bit in the MN blogs is from Dakota County (exurban sprawl, S of St. Paul). Procedure is to of course count the ballots and then stack them in groups of 25. (Since the ballots are 8x10, you then stack them in groups of 25 at right angles to each other.) At the end of the recounting you can visually tally totals by going 25-50-75 etc.
On Saturday a woman working at the recount was found putting 26 Franken ballots into a group (which of course later would be tallied at 25.) Franken observer caught it and called foul...twice. Attorneys from both sides went into a huddle with the election officials, who then recounted several Franken stacks---and caught 6 stacks of 26. No word on consequences for the woman in question.
Kudos to the Franken observer! And, ugly as something like this is, it was caught, dealt with and fixed. (I'll bet the attorneys on both sides might feel pretty good about what they did actually serving justice.) Whew!
- Trouble in Recount Paradise Part II
First Day recounting in Mower County (Austin, home of Hormel Meats, including SPAM!, S of Twin cities on the Iowa line) and all is NOT WELL
From TheUpTake.com Monday morning:
(About 9:30am) We have a report from Mower County that the election official is "publically (sic) humiliating" a Franken challenger for making what appears to be a legitimate challenge......The person who contacted us, who is an observer with a labor union says she has a video camera..... Apparently when the Franken representative makes a challenge, the head election person stops everyone in the room and makes her state to everyone why she is challenging. He then publicly scolds her for making the challenge.
(About 12:30pm) The Mower County election official has over ruled the only two ballot challenges. They have both come from the Franken campaign. The election official reportedly started screaming and made the Franken representative cry. According to eyewitnesses the ballots in question were not clear on voter intent and the challenge was legitimate.
TheUpTake was ALL over this story all day. Official in question is Doug Groh the Mower County Auditor, so he is THE election recount official.....UpTake also say the have video of said screaming......(Mid afternoon) Mike McIntee, webmeister at TheUpTake calls Sec. of State's office, asks if Ritchie aware of boil over in Mower County. Negative, but thanks for tip, will check on it and call Mike back......Asst. Sec. of State Aiken calls back, says he called Mower County re: issue and matter was "resolved" (no further comment).....Later reports from Mower County report challenges happen again but Groh much calmer, apparently having had a phone call sometime mid-afternoon.
And....in case you're wondering just how much leeway an election director/ county auditor HAS in a matter like this, the LAW says:
The candidate's representative authorized to challenge ballots at a Table may challenge the decision of which of the three piles the Table Official place[sic] a ballot. He or she must state a reason for the challenge pursuant to M.S.(2008) Section 204C.22. Challenges may not be automatic or frivolous.
The Table Official will reexamine the ballot to determine into which pile it should be placed. If either candidate's representative who is authorized to challenge ballots does not agree with the Table Officials' final determination, the ballot will be placed in one of two new piles of challenged ballots. One pile of challenged ballots will be for all ballots challenged by Coleman's representative; the second pile of challenged ballots will be for all ballots challenged by Franken's representative. Challenges may be withdrawn at any time.
Uhhhhh, Mr. Groh, Mower County Auditor, sir? What part of "the ballot will be placed in one of two new piles of challenged ballots" don't you understand, when a "candidate's representative.....does not agree with the Table Officials' final determination"? You DO get to ask for a reason for the challenge. You DO have to write down the reason. But after that, sir, you don't get to say ANYTHING! Shut up and put the vote in the right pile and MOVE ON! (ACORN to you too, buddy!)
Cheers to TheUpTake, a new media, shoestring operation. (They are thinking of taking to the air, not with a helicopter, but maybe with a helmet cam and a jet pack! If you'd like to throw them a few bucks they'd appreciate it.)
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie releases this about recounting somewhere in Minnesota that is not the Twin Cities ("greater Minnesota.")
Ritchie said that he was pleased to receive a report from an election official in greater-Minnesota saying that the recount, "went very well and the members that represented both campaigns were very professional and courteous to the county staff as well as [to] representatives from the opposing campaign and were very respectful of our jobs as recount officials. It turned out that for the lunch break one of the campaigns brought enough to eat for both campaigns. It seems that both side[s] can sit at the same table as long as food is involved."
There they go again! Minnesotans acting like decent human beings again.....obviously the Lizard people are NOT everywhere ("....but there were some who resisted. A last alliance of men and elves marched out against the forces of Sauron the lizard. On the slopes of Mt. Doom.....")
4) Lawyers swinging light sabres III?//NO! Judges swinging light lances!
Knaak and Elias have taken a few swings but according to Jay Weiner at the Minnesota Post http://www.minnpost.com/...
the State Canvassing Board is warming up in the legal bullpen.
Eric Magnuson is Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and one of 5 members of the Board.
Last week, when he arrived for his meeting at the State Canvassing Board, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson carried two historic legal cases with him.
Give His Honor credit for dusting off the law books in his library.
One case – O’Ferrall vs. Colby – was decided in December 1858, barely seven months after Minnesota became a state. The other – Taylor vs. Taylor – hearkens to 1865, when another cool guy from Illinois was president.
There you go, legal eagles of a Minnesota feather! A 143 year old Minn. Supreme Court decision as possible precedent.... and a 150 year old one that might invoke "territorial legislative law" Betcha haven't touched territorial law in a while :-). Magnuson also gave copies to the other board members, 3 of whom are also judges (a Supreme Court associate justice, and 2 Ramsey County court judges, along with Sec. of State Ritchie.)
Also, the Canvassing Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 16 to rule on the (in)famous challenged ballots. The total of these stands at nearly 3000 today, although there are "ballot disarmament" talks underway between the camps and Ritchie's office to see if some of them can be taken down by either camp withdrawing some of their challenges against the other side. Hope so, because Weiner also writes:
Here’s the challenged vote problem: If it takes three minutes per ballot for a thorough examination and there are 3,000 challenged ballots, that’s 9,000 minutes or 150 hours or more than six straight days of ballot counting . . . without sleep. Won’t work.
- Speaking of the State Canvassing Board, they are all going to "cleanse the palate" for Thursday by having an official meeting on Wednesday with both camps. First word (again from Weiner) is this is no court case or hearing with lawyers doing a lot of blah, blah. Instead.......
........the State Canvassing Board has told both campaigns to prepare for a two-hour meeting Wednesday and that there will be no oral arguments from the lawyers; they should only be there to answer inquiries from the judges.
Just me, but why do I think judges might ENJOY the chance to ask nosy, uncomfortable questions and do the talking while lawyers squirm?
- Campaign posturings
As you know (from DemSem's diary Saturday) the Coleman campaign has challenged some ballots that had a McCain vote for president and a Franken vote for senate. Nothing wrong with the ballot physically, but Norm and his people apparently can't comprehend this combination is possible.
Now we also have a report of a challenge of a ballot that has a McCain vote for president and no vote at all for senate. OK, so? Your classic "undervote." So? Coleman campaign has challenged, holding that a McCain + blank ballot should be counted for COLEMAN! S'truth! WAY! And as they say in Brooklyn (home of Norm's accent), "Da noive!"
Franken campaign held a press conference this afternoon. A press release had the following for lovers of numbers.
Each night, the Secretary of State will update its count at 8 pm Central Time . But because we have observers in every precinct (many of which counted into the night), our internal data is more up-to-date. In addition, whereas the Secretary of State removes all challenged ballots from his tally, we are able to report the election judge's actual calls from the table.
Thus, we believe that Norm Coleman's margin has been cut down into double digits, below 100 votes, and that it has narrowed further since dipping into double digits late last week.
(As of Saturday night:)
We believe that 68% of the ballots have been counted. Among the ballots that have been counted, Al Franken won 49.3% of the two-way vote on Election Day. Among the ballots that have not yet been counted, Al Franken won 51.6% of the two-way vote on Election Day.
In Hennepin County: 67.3% of the ballots have been counted. In the precincts counted, Al Franken got 52.9% of the two-way vote on Election Day. In the precincts not yet counted, Al Franken got 68.8% of the two-way vote on Election Day.
In Ramsey County: 43.2% of the ballots have been counted. In the precincts counted, Al Franken got 70.6% of the two-way vote on Election Day. In the precincts not yet counted, Al Franken got 52.8% of the two-way vote on Election Day.
In St. Louis County: 78.6% of the ballots have been counted. In the precincts counted, Al Franken got 62.3% of the two-way vote on Election Day. In the precincts not yet counted, Al Franken got 64.3% of the two-way vote on Election Day.
N.B. Also in press release Franken campaign has asked Sec. of State's office "to find missing ballots that have been reported across the state. Press reports indicate that ballots are missing in Saint Paul, Duluth, Coon Rapids, Hermantown, Crystal, Hopkins, Berlin, Apple Valley, and Chisago, among other places."
Missing ballots? This IS news, but very little else to go on. How many? Why? How did the Franken campaign find out they were missing, apart from press reports?
Oh, and for out of staters: St. Paul you know.
Coon Rapids, Anoka County, WNW of St. Paul, exurb.
Chisago, county seat of Chisago, N & a bit east of St. Paul.
Apple Valley in Dakota County S of St. Paul.
Crystal & Hopkins both suburbs W of Minneapolis in Hennepin Co.
Hermantown is a suburb of Duluth in St. Louis County.
Berlin is in Steele county--no further information received since 1971....from anyone.
- From the Sec. of State's Office: 8:00pm CT 11/24/08 Monday eve. (NOTE: County totals needed to be faxed in to Ritchie's office by 6:00pm to be included in these numbers. Star Tribune and other sources may have later numbers that will be included tomorrow.)
Total Ballots reported counted since start of recount: 74.18% (Wednesday's count: 15 pct. points. Thursday: 27 percentage points. Friday: 18 1/2 pct. points. As expected Saturday's count was smaller, only 4.79%. Also as expected, this week is going slower: Monday: 8 1/2 percentage points.)
Coleman 908063= -1051 from election night in these same precincts.
Franken 889891= -1008 from election night in these same precincts.
BOTH candidates have lost votes on the recount, but this is a net swing TO Al Franken of 43 votes (Wed. was 43 net to Al, and Thursday was, by coincidence, 43 net to Al. Friday was 14 net to Al. Saturday's counting was a net swing to Norm by 52. Now Monday was another net swing to Norm by 5.)
SO the simple math is Coleman's lead at the start 215-43= 172
Challenged ballots:
Franken has challenged Coleman & other = 1401
Coleman has challenged Franken & other = 1400
Soooo....using the "new math" (from Sunday's diary) on what to make of these: If Franken 's recount numbers had NO errors and exactly matched election night, then he should be Minus 1400--the exact number Coleman has challenged. Since he down 1008, then 1400-1008 = 392 new votes for Franken (e.g. ballots marked with an X instead of the oval filled in, etc. that the machine could not read but a human can, AND which are so obvious the Coleman observer will not challenge.)
By the same formula Coleman would be: 1401-1051 =350 new for Norm. What to make of the 392-350= 42 advantage for Al? I'm not sure this is number means much, but subject to correction by wiser heads.
Whew! Heavy day, Monday! Ok, now we'll add the AM report and head off to work.
Tuesday Morning Updates
- Republican Projection and Strategy Dept.
(With a hat tip to Karl Rove) if you want to know what a modern Republican's strategy is on a given issue, look at what they are accusing their opponent of. Then you know for 100% what the Republican plan is. ("Democrats ruin the economy by overspending"="We will ruin the economy by overspending." "Liberals are perverts"="My name is Mark Foley/Larry Craig/Ted Haggard" OR "Democrats hate America/small business/capitalism" =
"We are destroying the Constitution, supporting Wal-mart, bailing out Wall Street.")
See how that works?
So keep those glasses on and read this quote from Fritz Knaak, Norm Coleman's legal eagle:
Knaak, meanwhile, said the Coleman camp's analysis of the challenged ballots, as of mid-afternoon Monday, gave Coleman a five-vote lead among them, but he acknowledged it was an ever-changing number.
He added that the Coleman campaign was suspicious that Franken's campaign was increasing its ballot challenges in an attempt to "artificially deflate" Coleman's lead before a Canvassing Board meeting Wednesday. Knaak said it was "a pitch to appearances as opposed to reality."
This is EXCELLENT news for the Franken campaign! This means the Coleman campaign publicly believes
a) Franken is leading;
b) its a rather big lead, propapbly flirting with 3 digits;
c) The Coleman campaign is increasing its ballot challenges in order to "artificially deflate" Franken's lead, and
d) Coleman's side is playing up "appearances as opposed to reality." GO AL! GO AL!
- From the Star Tribune (with coffee)
Von Sternberg (obviously a far-southern Scandinavian name) gets the front page, bottom center, under some above-the-fold guy with a funny name and big ears from Illinois trying to resuce the economy or something. Star Trib's box score numbers are Coleman margin 210/ challenged ballots 3000+/ 78% counted.
Star Trib number crunchers figure Franken has gained 46 net votes statewide NOT connected to challenged ballots.......Nate Silver's "27 vote win for Franken a possibility" gets play AND "A GOP blogger denounced Silver's work, noting that Silver used to contribute to DailyKos, a well-known liberal blog, and mentioning Silver's support for Obama." AACCKKKK! We're busted!
Maggie Vertin last week was a Franken observer for 2 days in Fergus Falls (Otter Tail County). Saturday, she worked as an election judge in her home Wilkin County. She says, so? Everybody in the Wilkin County recount room voted for somebody, but were still impartial. Wilkin County Auditor said, a) she didn't tell him (but she says she did), b) he souldn't have let her work Saturday if he'd known, c) she did "an admirable job" Saturday, d) state GOP is ticked off, put out a press release, but made no formal complaint to the auditor "so nothing really came of it."
2 missing ballots in Anoka County were found after a search (darn! The process working AGAIN! No wonder Republicans at mad!) A city worker in Lexington City opened a box that had been used to store ballots before the recount and 2 fell out; best guess: static electricity had pinned them to side of the box when the others had been removed for the recount. (Since you gotta know: 1 vote for Coleman; 1 vote for minor party candidate.)
2 LTEs, both defending election judges and their guidelines for rejecting absentee ballots. Since Franken has made noises about these you could say both letters are pro-Coleman, but just as easily you could take them as defending the process and system.
An op-ed piece by former (R) Senator Durenburger and a 2nd section opinion column by Nick Coleman (no relation; no lizard DNA) both writing in favor of Instant Runoff Voting, and how it might spare us most recounts. Nice push from both. Minn. Legislature? Pawlenty? Your turn.
Almost forgot. A major OP-Ed from the Star Trib board: Calls for courts to rule on rejected absentee ballots (rather than the canvassing board---who will decide challenged ballots, a different pile.) Cites the 5 tests by law for accepting an absentee ballot: name/address on return envelope matches absentee ballot app. info, voter signature on envelope matches sig on app. (w. certain narrow exceptions), a certificate filled out, voter must be registered OR register with absentee ballot (included with return envelope), voter may not have voted in person at polls. No doubt since Franken brought up this issue the Colemanites will lose all respect for the Star Trib.....for bringing up this issue. Ce la vie!
OK this is long enough. The Not-Cincinnati-Bungles coffee mug resting on the "Minnesota Official Ballot" needs a refill, so here's the latest from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.