Some bits and pieces that might add up to a diary. Everyone has been waiting for today when the State Canvassing Board meets to begin resolving about 950 181 challenged ballots. Until then, not much drama at all, certainly less than what's going on in DC these days.
And then, the Supreme Court weighed in. And NOW, just before posting, comes the MN Progressive Project with THis story:
Well scratch this WHOLE DIARY! Here is an incredible link:
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/...
UPDATES BELOW FOLD
Well if the local media are right, this is ALL OVER. Click in to any media source for the latest. I'll put this diary up for historical purposes and so you can chat away!
All the signs look good. So in about 2 hours you can add MN to the governors mansions that changed hands FROM GOP to DEMOCRATIC in a heavy Republican year. (CA, HI and CT I know; is there one more?)
UPDATE 1: Rachel Stassen Berger at the Star Tribune is confirming announcement coming:
http://www.startribune.com/...
UPDATE 2 The State Canvassing Board, at the request of Emmer attorney Eric Magnuson, has adjourned today's meeting until 11:00am to allow Emmer to make an announcemment at his home in Delano at 10:30.
These signs continue to point to a concession.
UPDATE 3
At 9:33am the AP is reporting Emmer will concede.
http://www.kare11.com/...
UPDATE 4: Emmer concedes. Mark Dayton is MN's new governor. A wrap up diary will be up tomorrow to lay this story to bed.
Shalom!
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1)Last call for ballot challenge withdrawals was noon Tuesday.
"To provide adequate preparation time for the meeting, if you provide notice of any withdrawn challenges after noon on Tuesday, the ballots will be presented to the State Canvassing Board and the challenges will be withdrawn orally at the meeting," the office told the candidates' attorneys.
Brief story here:
http://www.startribune.com/...
AND both sides in the governor's race took up the State Canvassing Board on these words. These are not the "frivolous" ballots that have been totally withdrawn by the Dayton side and virtually all withdrawn by the Emmer team on Saturday's field trip.
Rather these are the more "legitimate" challenges (like when it looks like a voter marked 2 names on a ballot, or X'd one out...or did they X first and then try to blot it over? You know, genuine head-scratchers.) Between the 2 campaigns these amounted to about 940 ballots statewide (175 from Dayton, the rest from Emmer.)
Well you can scratch not only your head but also the numbers. Both sides did a whole lot of withdrawing of these challenges so that when the Canvassing Board starts in on them today at 9:00am CT they will only have 91 Dayton challenges and 90 Emmer challenges on the table. Yep! 181 total.
If the 2008 recount is any guide the Board will likely finish these 181 TODAY. For the real junkies the Uptake will carry it live here: (and the live blog will be fun!)
http://www.theuptake.com/
They were scheduled to meet the rest of this week to chew through all of them but Thursday and Friday will now not be necessary for challenges. This makes it likely their sequence could move at good speed:
Today: 181 ballot challenges
Thursday: Final tabulations and checks on all races statewide.
Friday: Certify election results and winners.
Which means Mark Dayton could be the certified, "give him the election certificate" winner on December 10. That would start the clock ticking on an election contest court filing---the result will become final and the concrete will harden unless in those 7 days the trailing candidate files such a suit.
We'll see.
Rachel Stassen Berger writes it up here:
http://www.startribune.com/...
and here:
http://www.startribune.com/...
2) About 3 weeks ago the Emmer team filed a petition with the MN Supreme Court on the question of "reconciliation": did election officials across the state use the correct procedures to match up votes and voters? There is law about this and administrative rules from the Sec. of State's office built on this law. Emmer filed, the Court asked for responses from interested parties, and the Dayton campaign, the Attorney General, and 5 county attorneys took them up on that. There were oral arguments and then 90 minutes after the echoes finished resounding in front of the High Bench they issued a ruling: "No, Tom."
So the Recount went ahead as planned. Meanwhile every Emmer attorney from Magnuson to Trimble (obviously covering a LOT of ground between those 2), Emmer himself and even MN GOP chair Tony Sutton the Hutt all sang from the same page: "We want to move/expedite/ hasten this recount right along (wink, nudge) but gosh darn it, we can't because on the legal side of things we don't have the Court's opinion. The just ruled and ordered no, but gol durn it, we don't know why. We need to see their opinion so we know where we stand."
So in a half-baked way they were excusing some of their stalling on other fronts by blaming the Court.
Well they can quit now. Yesterday afternoon the Supremes came down with an 18 page opinion to back up their Order. They mention Emmer's name a lot (it was his petition after all) and they often connect it with the word "fail", as in "the petitioner's argument fails". Its fail this, and fail that and it all adds up to "NO" and "we mean it."
The ruling is "per curiam" (L. "through the court"), which I presume is unanimous. (Lawyers in the house: is "per curiam" the legal argot for unanimous? Or are there subtleties here?)
As usual there are a number of cases cited (the Court was rather taken to point out that "this has been the way its done since at least 1939--cite case", just to show they have done their homework.) In 1 spot they elegantly side step an Emmer board check by noting in a footnote: "you'll have to take that up with the Legislature."
The link to the opinion is this short article here:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
Now I am not a lawyer, but friends and neighbors, there just doesn't seem to be ANYTHING to go on here. It looks like this avenue is closed for any legal maneuvering. But.....
3) Emmer and the GOP team, having been shot down in flames on the question of "reconciliation" in 90 minutes by The Supreme Court, are trying something else. They want the precincts to reconcile the number of voters with the number of votes by using the State Registered Voter Database. The only problem is the SRVD is not meant ot be used this way. There are holes in it for perfectly good reasons. Also it has not used like this before since state law mandates a different way to tackle this issue. A description of the situation here:
http://www.startribune.com/...
I got a lot of doubts about this one too. They haven't tested this in Court yet but it looks doomed (DOOMED!) to me as well.
Does this mean the election, the recount and... the END are all in sight??
We'll see.
4) MN GOP chairman (a volunteer position) Tony Sutton (the Hutt) has found the job hard. He feels like its worth 2 full-time jobs, insulting BOTH the state election officials and volunteers (about 30,000 people in all) while at the same time, purging the GOP of moderates (noted yesterday; 2 former governors, a former senator, and a notable donor (does the name Pillsbury ring a bell? The family is still here.)
Its apparently too much for Tony and cutting into taco sales at his restaurant chain, so he's thinking of quitting.
http://www.minnpost.com/...
5) Speaking of party chairs, the MN DEM party Bill Melendez is taking some heat as well. The flip in the legislature came as an ugly shock to everyone and the grumbling is out loud. A couple snips from Politics in MN (subscription required)
Melendez responded (To the election results) in a letter to the entire state central committee, giving members his election takeaway and making it clear that he had not yet decided whether he would seek another term as head of the state’s Democratic Party. Melendez has now been at the helm of the DFL for nearly six years - as long as any chairman in state party history - and is believed to want a fourth term. If he runs and is re-elected when the group meets next year, he will make history as the party’s longest-serving chair.
But there’s long been grumbling about the party’s shoddy financial state - fraught with fundraising struggles and unpaid dues in the past - and more recently, Melendez’s response to election night losses has more than just a few DFL bloggers and activists upset. Privately, many of them are saying they want to see a new chair take the reins.
"There have been a lot of good things that have happened under Brian’s watch," said one, "but there are a lot of people who have been frustrated. The party has been really marginalized over the last six years under his leadership.
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OK thats all I can manage this morning. I'm fighting off a cold and the major bummer from Monday night at the White House. One thing I'm sure of: this is better reading than the awful sellout on the millionaire tax cuts. I'm going to have a morning mimosa (for medicinal purposes, of course) to match up with my friend Jack Daniels. Some days you don't want to sober up from, even when you live yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.