TOMORROW: CANVASS BOARD TO COMPLETE CHALLENGED BALLOTS REVIEW – FRANKEN CAMPAIGN PROJECTS 35-50 VOTE LEAD
Tomorrow morning, the State Canvassing Board completes an important step in this recount process: the board will wrap up its challenge review process. Currently, Al Franken leads Norm Coleman by 46 votes. We expect that when the few remaining corrections are made and the result is finalized at tomorrow’s meeting, Franken’s lead will be between 35 and 50 votes. To be ahead at this point in the process bolsters what we have said all along: that once all the votes are counted Al Franken will be the next Senator from Minnesota. Today we are more confident than ever that Al Franken will be the winner of this election. After tomorrow morning’s results are announced, the only remaining issue to be resolved will be improperly rejected absentee ballots–which the Minnesota State Supreme Court has previously ruled should be included in any final count.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/

COLEMAN CAMP ATTEMPTS TO UNDERMINE COUNTING OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS – AP REPORTS CAMPAIGN ADDING FROM AREAS WHERE THEY DID BEST
The Coleman campaign has refused an offer by the Franken campaign to agree to the counting of all 1,350 absentee ballots identified by local elections officials as improperly rejected, making the nonsensical contention that these are all “Franken ballots.” Now, the Coleman campaign has introduced a set of 650 additional ballots they seek to have included, which the Associated Press found, “skew heavily toward suburban and rural counties where he did best in the election.” Franken attorney David Lillehaug said: “Today, the Coleman campaign, which has since day one objected to the counting of improperly rejected absentee ballots, made clear they have little interest in participating in the process set forth by the Supreme Court to ensure that Minnesotans are not improperly disenfranchised. We are almost at the finish line of this recount, and instead of moving this process forward, they play political games in the hope that they can drag this out and thwart the imminent conclusion of this recount.”
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=534024&catid=2
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/29/coleman-stalls-minnesota_n_154052.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gMpTmr96V5hKIfyHT4Av4jsVQgrQD95CLI900

JANUARY 5TH: STATE CANVASS BOARD TO MEET
The State Canvassing Board is expected to meet on January 5th to accept amended returns from local precincts that include improperly rejected absentee ballots and review any challenged ballots from those ballots. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar stated in this morning’s Star Tribune that she wants to see the winner–as declared by the State Canvassing Board–seated in the U.S. Senate. This follows Senate precedent, including 1996 when Mary Landrieu was seated despite and during a dispute waged by her opponent.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/36785544.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/28/franken-should-be-seated_n_153796.html

KEY POINTS

• We are nearly at the end of what has been a long but fair recount process. Each step has been conducted carefully and in full view of the public, and we have seen public servants from the state canvassing board down to local elections officials perform a great deal of good work under significant pressure. And, at the end of that process, we believe that Al Franken will hold a lead over Norm Coleman, and will be declared the winner of the election.
• Claims by the Coleman campaign that some ballots have been counted twice are not supported by any evidence. The Coleman campaign efforts to obstruct and delay the process are merely attempts to start the recount over from scratch, a process which could drag on for months. However, there is no reason to believe that a re-recount would yield any different result.
• The Coleman campaign has already said that, when it is officially declared to have lost the election, it will file an election contest, seeking to have the result overturned in court. That is their legal right. But the millions of dollars a lawsuit would cost won’t change the result. Meanwhile, if declared the winner and seated by the U.S. Senate, Al Franken will go to work in Washington on behalf of the people of Minnesota.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.