It's that time of year again in Minnesota - the final leaves are making the trip to earth, it gets a bit chillier each day, and, early each morning, Minnesotans peek out their windows wondering if they will see the first blanket of white.
That's right, it's Recount Season.
Star Tribune:
Minnesotans Wednesday woke up to a repeat of their long nightmare - a statewide race with a margin that leads straight into the depths of a recount.
With only 19 precincts left to report, DFLer Mark Dayton leads Republican Tom Emmer by less than one half of 1 percentage point -- 43.67% to 43.24%.
...
For any race where the margin is less than one-half of 1 percentage point, there is an automatic recount, as happened two years ago in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race when Sen. Al Franken unseated Norm Coleman.
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If you're like me, these words immediately bring you back - to images and sounds from "yesteryear" (come to think of it, it was just last year that they finally finished the last one...):
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie presiding over the State Canvassing Board proceedings, inflicting repetitive stress injuries on his vocal chords.
- Lightsabre-wielding lawyers.
- Hearings before the "3 judge panel" and the MN Supreme Court.
- and, of course...
It looks like we'll be seeing much the same cast of characters again...
A member of Franken's 2008 recount legal team says lawyers for Minnesota Democrats are already preparing for the recount. Former Minnesota U.S. attorney David Lillehaug says it's too early to talk about Democrats' strategies before the votes are finalized, but that the party will be ready for the possibility.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who won reelection Tuesday and whose office supervised the Franken-Coleman recount, was also meeting with reporters in the morning.
At 10 a.m. today, the state Republican party will hold a news conference to discuss its recount views.
That event will include the party's attorney Tony Trimble, who was a key member of Coleman's 2008 recount team.
And, of course, the "cast doubt" tactics have already started:
“We are concerned about the fact that there were many discrepencies,” said Tony Sutton, the state Republican Party chairman.
Sutton stopped short of claiming vote fruad, but said: “Something doesn’t smell right” when the Republicans take over both state houses, oust Democrat U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, but “somehow, we don’t win the governor’s race.”
Luckily, the margin at this time is much larger (just shy of 9,000 votes as of this morning), so hopefully this won't drag on nearly as long. With the senate seat, it was possible to leave the seat vacant, but the MN Constitution appears to require a Governor be in office. Would Pawlenty get to hang around until this is resolved? This would be exceptionally bad, as the GOP took the statehouse, and would be unfettered during that period. Unfortunately, it's not clear what would happen.
So, off we go again. Hopefully, Minnesota will again prove how a calm and responsible democracy works.