The Coleman - Franken Minnesota senate recount lurches onward

December 29, 10:42 AMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

Previous Next

3 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the South St. Paul Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

A recount official

The grueling process that is the Minnesota recount for the U.S. Senate seat between "Landslide" Senator Norm Coleman and "Landslide" Al Franken plows relentlessly on today.

There have been no public opinions from the president-elect transition team or from Barack Obama, himself, on the situation, but that doesn't mean that things are not happening.

Campaign officials for both sides examined around 1350 rejected absentee ballots and prepared their arguments before the Minnesota secretary of state's office about each one of them. Both sides have to agree on them, by order of the Minnesota State Supreme Court, before the ballots can be sent to Mark Ritchie's office.

Franken sent the Coleman campaign a letter Saturday proposing to accept all the ballots, and to waive any additions

in the interests of avoiding further disputes and ensuring the votes are counted.

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake called the Franken campaign proposal not credible, not in good faith and not serious.

We agreed that there would be a certain process, and the Franken campaign is not interested in following that process - Mark Drake

Boo, hoo, hoo.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday will have campaign representatives attending meetings at twelve regional sites throughout Minnesota to go over the lists. What the results will be are partly up to the campaigns and are unclear.

This is not that complicated. These are 1,300-some wrongly rejected ballots that local election officials have identified. The campaigns have identified others that they think were also wrongly rejected, so the local election official has to examine those potential additions and see if they agree, and then the campaigns and local elections officials have to agree on the list ... and send them in. - Secretary of State Mark Ritchie

Hamline University Prof. David Schultz, professor of election law, figures that the Landslide Coleman's camp will argue that many of the the absentee ballots were correctly rejected.

There may be some of them that they can't figure out the intent of the voter. You know, somebody else decides to vote for Nine Inch Nails or something like that. -David Schultz

Landslide Al Franken, former Saturday Night Live writer, comedian, author, and activist leads Landslide Norm Coleman, former Democrat, Mayor of St. Paul, and current Republican Senator from Minnesota, by 47 votes.