Franken Race: Minnesota Court Deals Coleman New Blow

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Minnesota board on Monday certified results showing Democrat Al Franken winning the state's U.S. Senate recount over Republican Norm Coleman, whose lawyer promised a legal challenge that probably will keep the race in limbo for months.

The Canvassing Board's declaration started a seven-day clock for Coleman, the incumbent, to file a lawsuit protesting the result. His attorney Tony Trimble said the challenge will be filed within 24 hours. The challenge will keep Franken from getting the election certificate he needs to take the seat in Washington.

"This process isn't at an end," Trimble said. "It is now just at the beginning."

Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" personality, ended the recount up by 225 votes, an astonishingly thin margin in a race where more than 2.9 million votes were cast.

"After 62 days of careful and painstaking hand-inspection of nearly 3 million ballots, after hours and hours of hard work by election officials and volunteers around the state, I am proud to stand before you as the next senator from Minnesota," Franken said Monday in brief remarks to reporters outside his downtown Minneapolis condominium.

Coleman's campaign said he would make an appearance Tuesday in Minnesota. He was in Washington on Monday.

The recount reversed the unofficial Election Day results, which showed Coleman with a 215-vote lead.

Franken made up the deficit over seven tortuous weeks of ballot-sifting in part by prevailing on challenges that both campaigns brought to thousands of ballots. He also did better than Coleman when election officials opened and counted more than 900 absentee ballots that had erroneously been disqualified on Election Day.

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Coleman's lawyers have argued that some ballots were mishandled and others were wrongly excluded from the recount, giving Franken an unfair advantage. The final blow came earlier Monday, when the Minnesota Supreme Court denied Coleman's petition to add hundreds more disqualified absentee ballots from Republican-leaning areas to the count.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was careful to note Monday that the board was simply signing off on the numbers found by the recount: Franken, with 1,212,431 votes, and Coleman, with 1,212,206 votes.

"We're not doing anything today that declares winners or losers or anything to that effect," Ritchie said.

All five members of the canvassing board _ Ritchie, plus two state Supreme Court justices and two Ramsey County judges _ voted to accept the recount results.

A lawsuit would extend the fight over the seat for months. Any court case would open doors closed to the campaigns during the administrative recount. They would be able to access voter rolls, inspect machines and get testimony from election workers.

The case would fall to a three-judge panel picked by Chief Justice Eric Magnuson of the Supreme Court. Magnuson served on the Canvassing Board, but declined to say Monday if he would remove himself from the selection process as a result. Magnuson was an appointee of Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The campaigns continued the political maneuvering that has marked the nearly two months of the recount.

Marc Elias, Franken's lead recount attorney, referred to his client as "Senator-elect Franken."

"Former Senator Coleman has to make a decision," Elias said. "And it is a profound decision, one that he has to look into his heart to make: Whether or not he wants to be the roadblock to the state moving forward and play the role of a spoiler or sore loser or whether he wants to accept what was a very close election."

"The race in Minnesota is over," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. He called the Republican efforts to continue challenging Franken's election "only a little finger pointing."

A spokesman for Reid said there would be no effort to seat Franken when Congress convenes Tuesday.

Trimble, meanwhile, said that irregularities in the recount mean there "can be no confidence" in the results. And he said Coleman didn't want any delay in filing a challenge.

Minnesota law doesn't allow the issuance of a final election certificate until legal challenges are settled, meaning the state will be represented only by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, when Congress convenes on Tuesday. Coleman's term expired Saturday.

___

Associated Press writer Amy Forliti contributed to this report.

Comments

[bygollymissmolly]

"Today's ruling, which effectively disregards the votes of hundreds of Minnesotans, ensures that an election contest is now inevitable," Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said in a written statement.
---------------------
What a bunch of hypocrites. These 650 cherry-picked absentee ballots were in the pile that election judges said were disqualified because they met one of the four reasons to be disqualified.

There were 1,356 absentee ballots that were determined, again by the election judges, to have been wrongly disqualified - meaning they did not meet one of the four reasons for disqualification. During the sorting of these ballots the Coleman campaign would not agree to count over 400 of the ballots. Since both campaigns had to agree to count the ballot, Coleman got away with disenfranchising 400 voters whose ballots had been WRONGLY DISQUALIFIED. And yet he wanted to count 650 cherry-picked ballots that had been CORRECTLY DISQUALIFIED.

Hypocrite, thy name is Coleman and thy name is Republican.

[liberalsrheros]

thanks or taking the time to type that out molly.

sadly, msm won't tell that story.

[claudiam]

This is pathetic. I feel that MN has done everything in it's power to validate the votes. Coleman needs to grow up and stop the tantrum! claudiatucsonaz

[VirgoGrrrlie]

I support Franken and voted for him, as an absentee ballot voter, here in MN. I do wish however that ALL of the wrongly-rejected ballots were counted. That is what people vote for: to have their vote count. However, I believe that a full count of those ballots would favor Franken anyway.

Coleman is doing what he does best: act the spoiler, whine, and b*tch about everything that doesn't go the way he wants. Such an inappropriate and immature attitude for a longtime Senator! TIME FOR A CHANGE!

[dems08]

ALL of the wrongly-rejected ballots were counted, leaving Franken ahead by 225, thereby concluding the recount.

[MNmommy]

No they weren't. About 400 of them couldn't be agreed to - buy guess who?

[Grunty1]

The wrongly-rejected ones have been counted. Coleman is trying to include ballots that were rejected for legimate reasons: undervote, overvote, identifying mark, or (*crap, cannot remeber the fourth*)

[AdLib]

Published November 06, 2008

Coleman urges Franken to concede

Associated Press

Norm Coleman declared himself the winner of Tuesday's election, "Yesterday the voters spoke. We prevailed," Coleman said Wednesday at a news conference. He noted Franken could opt to waive the recount.

"It's up to him whether such a step is worth the tax dollars it will take to conduct," Coleman said, telling reporters he would "step back" if he were in Franken's position.

http://www.mankato-freepress.com/state%20and%20local%20news/local_story_311092606.html
=============================

Really? Well, thank goodness you have the chance to prove it now. Norm? Norm? Where'd he go? His bogus concern for the citizens of MN was here just a minute ago.

[scorpioleidy]

LOL!

[rich misty]

I am hearing crickets from the Republicans on this one... Yet another example in the long line of:

Do as I say, not as I do

[adey]

Does anyone read the headlines before posting them????

[shakker]

The loss of the Senate seat hurts the Republicans, worse is the loss of the bribes and graft, but the worst for them is the loss of those intimate discussions about family values in the Minnesota airport men's room.

You signal your interest by waving your hand under the stall walls.

[PoliticalEnnui]

This is probably far from over, but the ghosts of 2000's Bush v. Gore are very much with us.

[apoyo]

Fresh blow? New blow? Low blow?

How about blown out of the water?

[nualak]

Must have something to do with the law of retribution.

[rdn411]

Okay, so we are now at the point where the Canvassing Board has “certified” the results and we now wait for both MN’s Governor and Secretary of State to sign off under the seven day rule. The next is simple: if they do not sign off because of Coleman’s promised lawsuits, we HAVE to wait for the final results to be determined via judicial process. If they do, Franken is the next MN Senator.
What I need is the following: can someone please translate what the following Senate rule actually states in language I can understand:

“Rule II --
1. The presentation of the credentials of Senators elect or of Senators designate and other questions of privilege shall always be in order, except during the reading and correction of the Journal, while a question of order or a motion to adjourn is pending, or while the Senate is voting or ascertaining the presence of a quorum; and all questions and motions arising or made upon the presentation of such credentials shall be proceeded with until disposed of..."

Thnaks!

[GoodScout]

It basically outlines which points of order have priority. It says that a senator-elect arriving at the senate can interupt all business except::
- During the reading or correction of the journal (record of senate actions)
- During a "point of order"
- During a motion to adjourn
- While senate is trying to confirm it has a quarum.

Thus if you were a republithug trying to keep the senate from addressing Al's credentials, you'd call for a point of order, ask for adjournment, or call for a quarum count. Bottom line: They're going to have to move to have his credentials considered by the senate committee to prevent him from being immediately sworn it. And odds are they'll do it. Another reason to kill the fillibuster.

[rdn411]

Thank you very much, you must be a certified genius to understand Robot's Rules of Order!
However, I still assume (given my minimul understanding) that all Franken has to do is to hand his Certification form to the Senate secretary (quite a simple form, too) and voila, a done deal. What other certification process exists that requires Senate action?
Surely Cornyn would never dare to prevent a state certified Senator from taking their seat??? What possible justification could there be? Or, is Cornym speaking fillibuster only if Franken shows up without the Senate form properly signed off? Franken would NEVER do this.

[spark19me]

glad you fixed your headline, but why have our comments pending about your error....something fishy about that huff po

[MideastDove]

I think HP has outsourced editor duties offshore.

[Tropiholic]

so long su*ck*er

[lissak]

Wait a minute.....the Minnesota court is dealing blow? This ought to be investigated.

[JailNeoconVicts]

Dudes, does anyone actually check over your headlines? There are more errors on Huffpost headlines and ledes than in a freshman class expository writing assignment.

[banja]

Goodnight Norm Coleman. I hope two supreme court rejections is enough for the senate repugs. Now watch Gov Pawlenty try to abuse his power and refuse to certify Franken, repugs are shameless.