Coleman Campaign To Ask That All 12,000 Rejected Absentee Ballots Be Reviewed For Potential Counting

ST. PAUL – Fritz Knaak, lead recount attorney for the Coleman for Senate campaign today made the following statement:

“Next week begins an important step in getting to an accurate and valid number, and to determine who really won the 2008 United States Senate election. As we indicated at the end of the canvassing board proceedings, we believe the process was broken. And, one area where it clearly broke and has yet to be fixed is in the area of rejected absentee ballots. The discrepancies, problems and inconsistencies we saw during the recount process led us to file an election contest to protect the integrity of Minnesota’s election system and to ensure that no Minnesotan would be disenfranchised in this process.

“We have consistently believed that every valid vote must count, and that Minnesotans will only be confident in the outcome of this election if every valid vote is indeed counted. Everyone is well aware of the problems of double-counting votes of some Minnesotans. This double-counting of votes truly disenfranchises millions of Minnesotans. As is obvious, we intend to vigorously contest this matter and to ensure that Minnesota voters are all afforded equal protection under the Constitution and the concept of ‘one person, one vote’ is not seen as some quaint statement that holds no weight in law.

“I want to draw your attention to another issue that we intend to vigorously address beginning next week, and that’s this: We intend to request that the 3-judge panel allow for the possibility that the roughly 12,000 rejected absentee ballots be opened. “We expect that Minnesotans will share the same stunned disappointment we do to learn that the Franken campaign may actually oppose this fundamental act of fairness. Particularly when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, stated in a press release on November 26, 2008: ‘Today's decision by the Minnesota Canvassing Board not to count certain absentee ballots is cause for great concern. As the process moves forward, Minnesota authorities must ensure that no voter is disenfranchised. A citizen's right to have his or her vote counted is fundamental in our democracy.’ The principle of every valid vote counting was convenient only when it supported their purposes for the Franken campaign, which is a pattern we’ve seen from them throughout this entire process.

“Obviously, not every one of the 12,000 rejected absentee ballots was wrongfully rejected. However, those that were – those that were rejected through no fault of the voter – and conform to the laws of this state as to voting requirements, voter eligibility and voter intent – we believe those ballots must be opened. “In other words: If the absentee voter was alive on Election Day, was either a registered voter or included a registration card with his or her ballot, and did not otherwise vote, then his or her absentee ballot should be counted -- if the voter’s intent can be determined from the ballot. And I’ll say that again: If the absentee voter was alive on Election Day, was either a registered voter or included a registration card with his or her ballot, and did not otherwise vote, then his or her absentee ballot should be counted -- if the voter’s intent can be determined from the ballot.

“This is about equal protection, so voters in every county throughout the state can trust that their ballot was treated the same as a ballot in another county. This is about fairness in the process and for every Minnesotan who cast a ballot on Election Day. We don’t do so with the expectation that every vote will be a Coleman vote. “Instead, we do so because every Minnesotan deserves the right to vote and when they follow all the rules and cast a valid ballot, they deserve to have their ballot counted, and counted equally as every other ballot filed.

“We are now in a different phase in this process. The three judge panel – as clearly stated by the Supreme Court and the Minnesota Canvassing Board – is the exact right body to review this matter. The fact is, we're here and we’ll be before three judges who are empowered to do what the Canvassing Board could not – and what the Supreme Court in its wisdom directed us to do when we filed our contest in this election. This is the right time to be doing this. “And there are an extraordinary number of ballots to count. More than ever before in a Minnesota election. But, this election is not over just because more people than ever before cast their votes in this election. It will be over when each and every one of those individuals who cast a valid vote in this election has that vote counted – and has that vote make a difference.”

Does anyone really believe that an FR approved conservative Republican can get elected as MN Governor or U.S. Senator? Does anyone really believe that if Norm Coleman was more conservative he would have beaten Al Franken, and the National GOP would not be in this mess?

Respectfully, this is a dumbass post and exactly what I would expect from moderate milquetoast republicans! Of course, if Colman was more conservative, conservatives would have not abandoned the whole GOP/RNC. I don't care if MN is liberal or not. I don't want some loser moderate/rino representing and creating a liberal side to the republican party.

The only way we are really ever going to get things done in the republican party is by electing conservatives.

It's just plain stupid to put in someone who is a rino, knowing at least half the time they won't get elected, and the other half of the time they're trying ruin conservatism in the party. It's the height of idiocy, unless your party is fully conservatively controlled and the rino's all come on board!

I can beat Al Franken with conservatism in a heartbeat, it takes alot to rid yourself of the enemy within! Coleman's going to most likely lose anyways. After all, as you say the state is a windbag liberal state with losers, and I don't want another one in my party!

After the recount, the (MN) Secretary of State has some explaining to do
Morrison County Record (MN)
Tom West General Manager/Editor
January 16, 2009

I don’t know about you, but the more I read about the Senate recount battle between Norm Coleman and Al Franken, the more upset I am with the slipshod way the election was conducted.

Now, I want to make clear that I am not referring here to Morrison County Auditor Russ Nygren, his staff or this county’s many election judges. This county was involved in six recounts (two city council, three legislative and the Coleman-Franken race) and except for a few counting errors, and perhaps one improperly rejected absentee ballot, no other mistakes were uncovered. The recounts of the council and legislative races verified the initial result. Only the Senate race remains in limbo, but only because of problems that occurred elsewhere in the state, particularly Minneapolis.

The state Canvassing Board said that Franken had 225 more votes in the recount than Coleman. However, a widespread misunderstanding exists of what the Canvassing Board was expected to do. Its job was to count the ballots as presented to them. The contested decisions on which ballots were either improperly withheld or presented to the Canvassing Board still need to be decided in court. In fact, the Minnesota Supreme Court, in several rulings last month, invited a lawsuit to resolve those issues.

Except for a few extreme partisans, I think most Minnesotans want to be sure that all legal votes are counted. However, I doubt now that we will ever know if that happened. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, as the chief election officer of the state, is responsible for the mess along with a number of county auditors and city election officials. Part of Ritchie’s job is to train the county auditors, and in the larger cities the city clerk or chief election officials, how to conduct a fair election. It’s the job of those he trains to then teach the election judges their duties. It’s clear that as teachers, Ritchie and some others are lacking.

That became obvious when both the Franken and Coleman campaigns agreed that 1,346 absentee ballots were wrongly rejected all across the state by local election officials. Those ballots were crucial to the outcome. At the heart of Coleman’s lawsuit challenging the Canvassing Board result, however, are an additional 654 absentee ballots that Coleman thinks should be included, but Franken did not.

In one of the Supreme Court rulings, it was decided that only the rejected ballots upon which the two campaigns agreed should be included in the recount. However, the campaigns have no special standing in this recount; it’s the people’s will and the integrity of the voting process that is in question. If Franken or Coleman objected to including a ballot, then the judgement of local officials, who had already acknowledged 1,346 mistakes, was allowed to stand.

That the Secretary of State did not step in and ask the Supreme Court for statewide uniformity in determining whether ballots were wrongly rejected, reflects poorly on his leadership. (I should note that on this point alone, for Coleman to win the overall election, he probably would need 60 percent of the 654 ballots to be in his favor, compared to 25 percent for Franken and 15 percent for Dean Barkley or other third party candidates. That’s not likely to happen; probably the best he could do on this point is to push the margin under 100 votes.)

But other issues remain. Coleman alleges that absentee ballots may have been counted twice in 17 Minneapolis, one St. Louis Park and three St. Louis County precincts. The reason for the double-counting most likely is that many absentee ballots get folded into envelopes and mailed and then won’t go through the counting machines. The law is clear that when that happens, the election judges are to make a duplicate ballot, mark it as “duplicate” and the original ballot as “original” and then feed only the duplicate through the machine. That apparently didn’t happen in those 21 precincts. Again, that is a training issue. But these precincts voted 65 percent for Franken, and only 21.7 percent for Coleman, so if 150 votes were counted twice, using those same percentages alone, Coleman could pick up about 66 votes.

In two other precincts, Maplewood Precinct 6 and St. Paul Ward 3 Precinct 9, more votes were cast than there were voters. In Maplewood, the explanation is that the judges tried to run the absentee ballots through during the middle of the day and were interrupted, and didn’t get some of them included until after doing the final machine count. Still, the count shows 31 more ballots than voters. And then there is the infamous Minneapolis Ward 3 Precinct 1, where 133 ballots allegedly turned up missing. The original count is still being used, which increases Franken’s margin of victory by 46 votes. How can a recount include numbers with no paper trail? Most likely, those ballots never existed, but 133 others were double counted.

Ritchie keeps saying that this is a fair and impartial recount. How would he or anyone else know that with any certainty? He has a lot of explaining to do. What will he do to avoid a repeat? In addition, if Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak doesn’t do anything to clean up that city’s election division, he should forget about his gubernatorial bid. Thankfully, the Legislature is holding hearings on election reform. Lawmakers would do well to start by focusing on training issues.

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