More Minnesota Absentee Ballots Found; Franken Makes Major Push

The Minnesota Senate recount campaign has firmly entered its legal stages, with Al Franken's chief counsel sending a lengthy and sharply argued memorandum to the Secretary of State's office on Thursday making the case for counting a group of contested absentee ballots.

The newsworthy thrust of David Lillehaug's 39-page brief for Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was the direct highlighting of 62 individual cases where voters were either "erroneously rejected by election officials for not being registered," or their absentee ballots were wrongfully rejected.

Around the same time that this memo was made public, local reports emerged that put the number of potentially wrongfully rejected absentee ballots at approximately 2,000 -- far greater than the 500 to 1,000 range that has been previously cited.

"Ballots that were not rejected by local or county officials for one of the four statutory reasons are not 'rejected' ballots under Minnesota law, but rather are 'uncounted' ballots," wrote Lillehaug. Later he added, "State procedure and past practice plainly require that all uncounted ballots that have not been rejected be counted, even if they were previously left uncounted at an earlier stage of the process. Counties are responsible for locating such ballots and counting them."

Whether or not the state decides to count the group of absentee ballots that didn't meet any of the four established criteria for rejection will likely determine the election's outcome. All other ballots are known as belonging to "Pile 5."

Franken's campaign contends that, following the hand recount and assuming that no challenges will be upheld, they will end the process up by a mere four votes. The campaign is still, nevertheless, pushing for Ritchie to count the contested group of absentee ballots, noting that many came from Democratic strongholds.

"In recent days, Minneapolis has conceded 171 ballots belong in so-called 'Pile 5,' and the Ramsey County elections official has stated publicly that 100 ballots were erroneously rejected in that county," wrote Lillehaug.

"Once a state has created the right to vote by absentee ballot and established certain governing rules for the process, it cannot retroactively deprive those voters who have substantially complied with the process of their right to have their ballots counted," Lillehaug concludes.

To get a sense of just how hotly contested the legal arguments surrounding this issue have become, Lillehaug referenced, in his memo, court rules and legislative actions that stemmed from the mid-19th Century.

A state decision in 1887, he writes, "recodified the election laws and imposed a duty on the state canvassing board to certify a 'correct' report." Earlier he dismissed court decisions from 1858 (O'Ferrall v Colby) and another from 1865 (Taylor v. Taylor), which have been used to argue against counting the rejected absentee ballots.

On Friday, Minnesota's state canvassing boards will ultimately decided on whether this group of ballots will be counted in the final recount tally.

Comments

[Martampa]

Maybe those guys in Minnesota needs some help from Florida with the counting.

[jeffrey678]

This is why voting needs to be reformed on the national level. The Oregon system seems good and they have had vote by mail for 5 years. Check out their web site and see the 5 year voting system report. No long lines, bad weather, broken voting machines, lost and found ballots. Read the report, you will see for yourself.

[libladyohio]

This is yet another example as to why there needs to be witnesses involved, and true transparency,every step of the way in elections, including collecting and custody of the ballots.

The way we do it now is preposterous.

[Littlewords]

Just how does one lose a stack of ballots? and why in the heck would they be anywhere other than where they are supposed to be (all secured as one bundle from a polling precinct) that is then turned over to the city/county/state for preservation?

When a recount is performed are the ballots scattered out to uncontrolled personal residences? how can they be missing in blocks like this?

I'll bet that sadly dollars to doughnuts the morons that lost these ballots will not be kicked on the election precincts or gov't office teams accountable to ensure the vote of the people, instead these idiots will be here to repeat their either incompetent and/or reckless to nefarious behavior again.

[rcpmac]

I looked in my pocket yesterday and I had lost a $20 bill. How in the heck did I do that. I certainly didn't want or intend to do it and I didn't have millions of them to track.
I don't think there were any republicans democrats mormons or move-on members involved

[Stoyver]

Littlewords said "morons" not "Mormons"! There is a difference you know. If you read and are up on current events, i.e. you don't get all your news from TV, you know that it is Republicans who want to restrict voters. It is Republicans who claim that there is massive voter fraud and that registration and voting processes need to be tightened. And, it is Republicans who cannot produce evidence of the very voter fraud that they claim justifies tightening voting procedures.

With that in mind, Republicans involved in balloting and counting procedures are suspect.

[Pulemerci]

The way this recount is going, when it's over, Franken will have more votes than there are people in Minnesota. That's democracy.

[WSAY]

Whine, whine, whine… You right wingers never want all the votes counted. If they were, you would always lose.

[jeremyemilio]

How can people have faith in an election process in which ballots keep getting "found"? Where the f*** were they? And since there seem to be so many floating around out there in limbo, what about the ones that aren't found? This is NOT a complex process:

a) Vote.
b) Count the votes.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: As a Canadian I find this baffling. How does it take five weeks to divide all votes into two (or three) stacks and COUNT THEM? No algebra, no long division... just basic COUNTING. Two or three bright third graders should be able to do the job over a long weekend for pity's sake.

[MsAttitude]

Did Coleman pay ACORN to help with his campaign?

[Awakenedcitizen]

Ms, here is some attitude for you. In a three year period, the number of cases of voter fraud was...... 70! nationwide. yes, s e v e n t y (70) nationwide.

On the other hand, the votes not counted, discounted, "lost" or stolen in 2004 was in the 100's of thousands.

It is the comparison a tiny tiny acorn to a HUGE tree. BTW, acorn had nothing to do with the documented voter fraud; but I would encourage you to google Ms. Colter who committed voter fraud in Florida. great story. she used her realtor's address as her "home" address, and then tried to vote in that precinct...

[jneuman771]

I have missed something....why would Minnesotans even have voted for Coleman to start with?
A lot of his sleeze was already unfolding prior to election.
Further, in light of wha thas gone on in the bailout with the auto companies I do not want to see another Republican ever in office again.....
For those of you who supported Bush, and then McCain, get your razors out and start scraping those stickers off of your vehicles...you are advertising your I.Q.

[janmarie]

After all this franken is still 600 or so votes behind coleman.....geez. will it stop when franken has one more vote than coleman?

[roald]

Perhaps it will stop when the will of the people of Minnesota is known. Perhaps later when the techniques used to disenfranchise voters are known so that they can be countered.

[Proletarian101]

Your right, the only reason that Franken could possibly lose is if there is voting corruption of some kind. The entire state voted for him with only a few votes coming in for Colman. The entire state of Minnesota hates Colman. There must be 10s of thousands of fraudulant votes out there for Colman. Imagine if we can find all of the ballots that they stolen and changed to Colman, Franken would win by a landslide.

I guess that should covers what you actually mean when you say "the will of the people", right?

[applecrispbetty]

What you smokin girl? He's less than 100 behind even by the most conservative estimate.

[45245]

he lost though...

[TLV]

Although Obama won and other Democrats made significant gains in Ohio, the Democratic Secretary of State wanted a detailed recount in Cuyahoga County. Sometimes there are other reasons than what appears to be the obvious one for a recount. It is very expensive to do a recount and at times like these, how can one in Ohio be justified? I suppose there are people saying the same thing about Minnesota.

[45245]

true........but when does it stop?

[joethevoter]

when all legal votes are counted is when it stops

[Pinkmarbles]

It looks like Minnesota politics is as dirty as Illinois politics. Business as usual.

[roald]

And the remarkable thing is that Illinois politics (per capita ) is not even in the top ten of US states. Makes you wonder about the people who are attracted to "public service" and what they have to do to get ahead.

[jigisup]

You sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. WAWAWAWAWA...

[brooklyncitizen]

gives a whole new meanng to stuffing ballots...where exactly have these ballots been hiding?

[publicmenace]

In yer mama.

[captainindustry]

39 page brief. I thought that was funny.

[Judyisacutie]

Keep fighting, Franken. Don't give up an inch. Go! Go! Go! You'll get the seat. Don't let them cheat you out of it. Don't give up.

[Proletarian101]

Why is that votes keep showing up in Democratic strongholds? That could only mean that either Democrats in these areas are incompetent in monitoring their polls or they are corrupt. Hmmm...

[HmblDog]

I've wondered the same thing. Which comes first? Political princints with higher levels of poverty or political princints that vote predominantly Democrat.

[Yank in France]

Sorry folks. I would really like Franken to squeak out a victory but not at the expense of democracy itself. Since when did we start counting ballots based on an interpretation of voter "intent"?? If a voter is too ignorant or just plain incompetent to vote, maybe he/she should just stay home. My guess is that Coleman would win a new election by a large margin, since many of the Obama voters will not come out for a white guy.

[Thad]

"Since when did we start counting ballots based on an interpretation of voter "intent"??"

Since Minnesota law was explicitly written that way, you nimrod. But obviously researching a subject takes much less effort than expressing an opinion on it.

[Judyisacutie]

Thank you. Well said.

[MsAttitude]

They might as well hold elections based on who gets the loudest applause...