WTF to replace MSP as official abbreviation in Minnesota.
It’s December 11th and we still don’t know who has won the race in Minnesota between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Officially, according to the state of Minnesota, Coleman is up by 192. Unofficially, according to an internal Franken Campaign count, Franken leads by 4. Both sides are crying foul, citing controversies and irregularities, etc.
WTF? Exactly.
To really get a handle on the situation, let me present this excellent chart put together by the Minnesota Star Tribune:
Everything is now crystal clear, right? Well, if you said, “Yes”, then you understand the process far better than Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. From the appropriately titled Star Tribune article, “Senate recount: State law is clear on challenged ballots, except in the details,”:
But with a week to go before the state Canvassing Board begins ruling on challenged ballots, major questions remain about how the process will work.
It’s still not clear whether the campaigns will be allowed to argue their case to the board on each ballot, whether a simple majority of the five-person board will prevail in the case of split decisions, and how long this phase of the recount will play out.
It gets even better when you see where things stand regarding the interpretation of the rules to be followed by the state Canvassing Board when voting on the challenged ballots:
The board is made up of two state Supreme Court justices, two district court justices and Ritchie, who chairs the panel. It was unclear Tuesday whether a split board vote on a ballot would be decided by majority opinion, or whether the ballot would be rejected for lack of an unanimous vote.
Initially, Ritchie said he thought a split vote would be resolved in favor of the majority, but later said, “I think we don’t know. Because we haven’t as a group discussed any aspect of how this part will proceed. … We have to figure how we handle those. Do we put them aside and come back to them?”
Two state Supreme Court justices, two district court justices and the Secretary of State and no one knows the proper procedure here? The recount has been ongoing for a month. You think someone on the Canvassing Board might have taken the initiative to brush up on state election rules given that this is the closest election in state history.
Unbelievably, the Canvassing Board doesn’t meet to begin the review process of the challenged ballots until December 19th. Ritchie claims they’ll finish the review in four days. The Star Tribune did some math and estimated it will take them closer to 10. Not a problem, says Ritchie, stating that the Canvassing Board will break for the holidays, but will reconvene as many times as necessary to complete the task. The new Congress convenes on January 6th. The race is on.
But wait, there’s more!
You may have noticed the note in the chart above stating that there were 133 ballots missing from a precinct in Dinkytown. Yes, there really is a community in Minneapolis called Dinkytown. Apparently, in trying to hunt down those pesky ballots, someone at the county elections warehouse opened a box and discovered a plastic bag full of uncounted absentee ballots. Not only are the elections officials in the following video stumped when asked whether or not the ballots will now be counted, but they do a damn fine job of stumbling through what might have happened to the original 133 missing ballots as well:
Sadly, it seems the search for the 133 missing ballots is now being called off.
In light of all the controversy, Al Franken’s campaign released a video on YouTube yesterday containing emotional interviews with voters whose absentee ballots had been erroneously rejected and were not counted. Not surprisingly, the Coleman camp issued a statement calling the video a “new low” in Minnesota politics.
Besides being a ridiculously transparent response…you can’t tell me they wouldn’t be doing the same thing right now if the recount numbers weren’t going their way…the fact is, Coleman and his staff seem to have rather short memories. I, for one, would argue that this was the lowest point in Minnesota politics:
Approximately 192 votes now separate the two candidates in a race where nearly 2.5 million ballots were cast. I can’t imagine a better example of the phrase, “Every vote counts.” Unless, of course, you count this or this. This concludes argument #157 regarding why we need a new election system in this country.
In closing, I leave you with the Franken campaign’s new video, “My Vote”:
–Gordy
