Welcome to today's installment from the frozen tundra. But this OPEN THREAD for all things MN senate recount connected is anything but frozen, and the Kossacks showed yesterday there is enough passion in cyberspace to heat up any recount or election.
A respected Kossack put up a "hit & run" diary (and s/he is NOT the type who does this stuff) that reported the 4100+ Franken "lead" from the Sec. of State's office. Regular readers of this series know this is a rather useless number until the end of the recount (this Friday), the challenges (starting Dec. 16) and the final decisions on rejected absentee ballots (between now and who knows.) But given the endless grinding "Franken trails, Franken trails" drip-drip thats been going on since Nov. 4 its understandable the hunger for any crumb of good news might set off a happy frenzy. Said Kossack returned and took down the diary after 300+ recommends, the right and honorable thing to do. (Salutes sharply.)
Sardonyx later posted an excellent piece of hard news in Franken's favor!
UPDATE: TPM reports Franken side for 1st time claims a tentative lead. About comment #95 below. Also noted by some kid in Orange on Front Page.
So....to the Orange ballots..........and beyond.
Handy Links:
MN Sec. of State Website: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/...
Star Tribune Almost Real Time Recount Map thingy:http://www.startribune.com/...
New Media links:
The UpTake (includes videos):http://www.theuptake.com/
MinnPost: http://www.minnpost.com/...
Minnesota Publius: http://mnpublius.com/
Last Diary in this Series (Tue. 12/2):http://www.dailykos.com/...
NEW! 599 challenged ballot pictures at Star Tribune:http://senaterecount.startribune.com/
For those of you who are TRULY HARDCORE political junkies (WineRev doffs (DOFFS!) hat to you) and have been frustrated that the Star Tribune Recount Map Thingy ONLY reports county by county (you know, 87 different ways), well here is Maui Wowee, street-grade, Hunter S. Thompson strength (WHOA! Don't sprain something!) recount CRACK: WCCO has an interactive map that does this precinct by precinct! (So 4130 different ways, ok?) Here:http://elections.cbslocal.com/...
Grouping the recount into 3 types of ballots: recount, challenged and rejected absentee here's the latest.
I. Recount ballots--from around the state and the last counties.
From the Sec. of State's Office: 8:00pm CT 12/02/08 Tuesday eve. (NOTE: County totals needed to be faxed in to Ritchie's office by 6:00pm to be included in these numbers. Star Tribune and other sources may have later numbers that will be included tomorrow.)
Total Ballots reported counted since start of recount: 92.69%
(Tuesday: 1.56 pct. points added, smallest in recount)
Coleman 1,119,878= -2339 from election night in these same precincts.
Franken 1,122,413= -2427 from election night in these same precincts.
BOTH candidates have apparently lost votes on the recount, but this is a net swing TO Norm Coleman of 88 votes (Yesterday, net Coleman= 129)
SO the simple math is Coleman's lead at the start 215+88= 303
A good day for Al Franken, but a very slow, low count today, barely 1 1/2%. Al closed by 41 net, 37 in dramatic fashion as noted below.
CAUTION: Finding difference between C & F recount numbers (today yielding Franken +2623) is an unusable number. While it is the 2nd day Franken's number is larger (as opposed to the first 15 days when Coleman's number was larger) both camps have not mentioned this number AT ALL. Both consider it bogus & misleading until: end of recounting, Dec. 5 AND end of rulings on challenged ballots by State Canvassing Board (begins Dec. 16) AND final disposition of rejected absentee ballots (major examination of these runs Dec. 8-18--see below-- but MAY end up in court). Given that, this difference should only be noted in a salt cave after 30 minutes of licking.)
a) In a midday press conference Mark Elias for the Franken camp said their "Frankenmath" says they are still down, but only by 50 votes. (They are taking into account new votes being added for both sides and making an educated guess (probably sprinkled with hope) on how the challenged ballots will break.) With over 200K votes left to recount this is getting squeaky tight.
b) Just after Franken presser ended comes word from Maplewood (Ramsey County, suburb of St. Paul; precinct 6). Minn. Public Radio reports 171 uncounted ballots have turned up. Apparently on Nov. 4 a scanning machine broke down and was replaced by another, but the first 171 votes fed into the first machine before the malfunction were never counted.
After a flurry of excited counting, no doubt watched over in eagle-eyed fashion by every spare person in the room (including the Ramsey County election director JOE MANSKY! JOE POWER was in the room!) those 171 votes broke (no word if any, or how many were for Barkley) by +37 for Franken. Kossack chriscol got to post in sardonyx's diary:
"ACTUAL is much better, +37 for Al. (I was there & got the actual numbers.)
by chriscol on Tue Dec 02, 2008 at 03:11:34 PM CST"
As this news came in AFTER the Franken presser, doing the math 50-37= 13 votes might be the difference (by "Frankenmath"), albeit still in Coleman's favor. But a great piece of news for the Frankenites.
UPDATE: More JOE POWER, but on a critical matter. The Star Tribune is saying that there are now 31 ballots more in that precinct than the total number of voters (!). Elections Director Mansky is looking into it to try and figure out if that is a tabulation error or what.... Bears watching. Will try to update more if something comes in.......UPDATE 2: could be 31 more than people who signed in, not 31 more than total registered voters in precinct--which might be accounted for by a missing page from sign in log.......UPDATE 3:Some Reichwingers are already claiming fraud, saying a +37 break is statistically way out of bounds. Unfortunately for the Reichwing, the reality based wing knows how to do math (and statistics). I don't quite get it (I was good at math but hated "sadistics" class) but one blogger put it like this:
[Comment From KWRegan]
Franken netting 37 is NOT an unreasonable statistical deviation. From 171 let's throw out 16% Barkley/other to leave a nice square number 144. Franken expects to net 10, i.e. win those 77-67. Netting 37 means winning 90.5-53.5. The standard deviation is about sqrt{12}/2 = 6 (it's actually a smidgen less). So a deviation of 13.5 in Franken's total is basically a "two-sigma" event, which is what margins of error in polls are usually based on. At the edge but not "weird".
So there! (I guess)
UPDATE 4: AHA! the 31 vote discrepancy solved!
[Comment From KWRegan]
The Star-Trib story has been updated with an explanation for the 31-ballot gap. It was indeed from forgetting to log cards of those who voted absentee. When those cards are included, the numbers match exactly---and this exact match is a check against fraud.
Yep, the system is working again (took from 2:05 to 3:14 by TheUpTake time markers for Ramsey County's Joe POWER to settle this. Another hat tip to Joe Mansky and crew!)
c) Noah Kunin (Lithuanian power! WineRev is Estonian, so we East Baltics hang tough together. Edasi!) of TheUpTake with detail on the machine breakdown: (slightly edited to eliminate repetitions)
"Here's how it went down - the ballot counter is a small device that sits on top of the ballot box. When elections judges determined the counter was defective they replaced it. However, the new counter was not run after its replacement.......Noah Kunin: So, these 171 ballots remained securely in their box until today, when the box was reopend to conduct the hand recount. Workers quickly determined that there were more ballots in the box then on the machine tape from election night."
2) Challenged Ballots
a) The numbers from last night's Sec. of State posting:
Coleman and other ballots challenged by FRANKEN= 2910
Franken and other ballots challenged by COLEMAN= 3093
Total challenged ballots: 6003 (up 60 from Monday; like the recount as a whole, barely 1% move.)
Seems like this would have been a good day for either camp to whittle down their stack, but so far its been all talk, no walk.
Franken side keeps saying they will "un-challenge" "dozens" of ballots in challenge limbo (sounds Caribbean and competitive, with lots of rum, Mon!) later this week, so we'll see.
Coleman side keeps saying they are willing to talk to Franken side about climbing down on some of the challenged ballots but want a meeting first so both do it together. I don't exactly get why but thats their position so far for several days. (One wag has suggested if such a meeting comes to pass, Ritchie & the Canvassing Board may have to first help both sides settle on the shape of the table, height of the chairs, etc.)
3) Rejected Absentee Ballots
a) Elias for the Franken campaign now reports 9267 absentee ballots were rejected across the state, with information from all but 4 counties (and partial information from St. Louis County (Duluth).)
Admits heavy majority were properly rejected, but still believe 500-1000 may have been improperly excluded.
Mike McIntee at TheUpTake.com reports the "Four reasons for rejecting (an absentee ballot):
1)address does not match,
2)signature does not match,
3)voter is not registered, or
4)voter has already voted."
Elias at the presser said that Sec. of State Ritchie and the Canvassing Board (potent pair there) have now directed county (and in heavily populated areas, city) election boards to sort absentee ballots into these 4 rejection piles and that any ballot that does not fit one of these 4 (in effect the famous "5th pile") should be counted. If this is so (and as noted yesterday the Colemaniks have conceded the county boards do indeed have jurisdiction and authority to make these judgments) then perhaps 500 (according to Sec. of State) to as many as 1000 (range of 500-1000 according to Franken side) ballots might (might!) be added to the 11/4 vote totals. No one is hazarding a guess on how those ballots might break between Coleman and Franken.
b) Sec. of State Mark Ritchie (D)(CORRECTION: His office did. More detail below from Wed. am) sent out a directive to all county election boards to search for and report any "missing ballots"(sometime Monday) and instruction re: absentee ballots (here) Text of e-mail to all election boards: (crucial piece at pt.5)
From: Elections Dept
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 4:31 PM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Rejected Absentee Counts
Dear County Auditors and County and City Election Officials:
Once again I would like to thank you for helping the Secretary of State's Office conduct a hand recount of the ballots cast in the U.S. Senate contest. I know this task has required much more work than anyone originally anticipated, and we are very grateful for your assistance. I have attached a transcript of comments made by Canvassing Board Member Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin (Second Judicial District) last week relative to the professional assistance you have provided for the state. Subsequent to those comments, the Board unamiously approved a motion thanking you. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, without your assistance, the professionalism under which this recount has been conducteds would never have been possible.
At last week's meeting of the State Canvassing Board, the Board members expressed an interest in knowing the number of Absentee Ballots that may have been mistakenly rejected. In other words, the Board has heard anecdotal evidence of absentee ballots being rejected, even though the facts surrounding the ballot did not meet one of the four reasons stated in statute upon which an absentee ballot may be rejected. For example, if an absentee ballot was sent to the wrong precinct on election night and rejected by the election judges at that precinct, it could be argued that ballot does not meet one of the four statutory reasons.
The purpose of this e-mail is to once again ask for your assistance. We need your help in reviewing all previously-rejected absentee ballots and determining the number of ballots that were rejected for each of the following four statutory reasons:
- The ballot was rejected because the voter's name and address on the return envelope are not the same as the information provided on the absentee ballot application.
- The voter's signature on the return envelope is not the genuine signature of the individual who made the application for the ballot and the signature is required under applicable Minnesota law, or the certificate has not been completed as prescribed in the directions for casting an absentee ballot.
- The voter was not registered and eligible to vote in the precinct or has not included a properly completed voter registration application. Elections personnel shall use available voter rosters to determine whether the voter was registered.
- The voter had already voted at the election, either in person or by absentee ballot. Elections personnel shall use available voter rosters to determine whether the voter had already voted.
In addition, please create a fifth category of rejected abentee ballots as described below:
5. If the rejected absentee ballot does not meet one of these four reasons, or if the reason used to reject the absentee ballot is not based on factual information (e.g. the voter was initially determined not to be registered to vote at the address given, but a subsequent review determines the voter was registered at that address), that ballot should be counted as part of a fifth category of previously- rejected absentee ballots - absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected on or before election day.
If the election judges do not agree into which of the first four categories the ballot should be placed (e.g. because it was appropriately rejected for more than one reason), simply assign the ballot to one of the appropriate categories at random. If the election judges disagree as to whether the ballot was appropriately or inappropriately rejected, please assign the ballot to the fifth category. Please note the disagreement on a sticky note and attach it onto white space on the envelope.
The State Canvassing Board is primarily interested in determining how many ballots throughout the state would be included in this fifth category of rejected absentee ballots. At this time we are not asking you to open or count the votes contained in any of the five categories of rejected absentee ballots, nor are we asking you to compile a list of names and addresses of the absentee voters who have their ballots placed in any of these five categories. We simply are looking for the number of rejected absentee ballots that were legitimately rejected for one of the four statutory reasons and the number of rejected absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected by a County Absentee Ballot Board and/or election judges at the individual precincts.
We understand that this will require a significant amount of work on your part. This review should be done with the assistance of two election judges of different parties and you or a member of your staff. It must be done in a public setting where the public and representatives of the two campaigns would be allowed to observe, but not participate in the review nor question the election judges' decision into which category each previously-rejected absentee ballot is placed. In other words, candidates are not to be given the opportunity to challenge the decisions relative to the category into which each previously -rejected absentee ballot is placed.
Throughout the process, you should keep the previously-rejected absentee ballots with their precinct supply box. At the end of the process, you may keep the five categories of previously-rejected absentee ballots segregated using rubber bands or paper clips, but must store them securely in the appropriate precinct supply box.
If you are willing to assist us in this process, the State will reimburse you for the cost of hiring two election judges (or additional election judges if you intend to operate more than one table) plus an amount 0.25 for each rejected absentee ballot reviewed. Since many counties had a mimimal number of rejected absentee ballots, every county that participates will receive a minimum of $25.00 for their effort. We would ask that this task be completed no later than close of business on Thursday, December 18. Additional details about the specific process to be used will be forthcoming. However, I would appreciate it if you would complete the following survey and return it to me as soon as possible.
___ Yes we would be willing to assist with this process
___ No we are not willing to assist with this process, but would make our rejected absentee ballots available to representatives of the Secretary of State's Office or other County or City election officials from neighboring jurisdictions so the task can be completed.
If you are willing to participate in this process, please identify a date, time and location when you would begin sorting the rejected absentee ballots. Please forward this email to any municipal clerks in your county if they maintain posession of the rejected absentee ballots.
Please do not begin any earlier than Monday, December 8 and plan to complete the review and submit the numbers of rejected absentee ballots for each of the five categories forwarded to the Secretary of State's Office by 5:00 p.m., Thursday, December 18.
Date When We Will Begin Sorting Rejected Absentee Ballots: ________________________
Time When We Will Begin Sorting Rejected Absentee Ballots: ________________________
Location Where We Will Begin Sorting Rejected Absentee Ballots: _________________________________________
My best regards!!!
Sincerely,
So consider: a) The recount for nearly all ballots comes FIRST, and is expected to be completed by Fri. Dec. 5.
b) Starting Monday, Dec. 8 county and city election officials will concentrate on ONLY the absentee ballots, and do so for up to 10 days.
c) This will be public meetings, open to the people of the county/city.
d) Coleman and Franken camps should send an observer to watch over this re-examination of absentee ballots but they have to stay quiet. They MAY NOT CHALLENGE which pile the election board reaches on any absentee ballot.
e) Ritchie wants the boards to sort and segregate these rejected absentees BUT NOT OPEN OR COUNT THEM. He is waiting for an opinion/ruling from the State Attorney General Lori Swanson (D- 1st elected '06; bio here:http://www.ag.state.mn.us/... on whether or not such "5th Pile" votes should be counted. He has said before this process will NOT be rushed and if taking time helps insure the integrity of the process, so be it.
Is this open enough? Transparent enough? Deliberate enough? Covering as many legal bases as possible?
Sure feels like it to me---(swelling civic pride at democracy at work...sniff)
4. Lawyers Dueling with Light Sabres IV
Knaak (Coleman), noted in nearly 2600 precincts (out of 4193) there had been no challenges at all....and of those precincts Coleman had picked up 1 net vote. (And also noting today his Franken counterpart, Elias, was in DC-- to literally spend time with his family :-), since his wife and children live in their house in northern VA and he hasn't seen them in 2 weeks--- and phoned in his noontime presser from the DSSC press room in the Capitol): from Jay Weiner, MinnPost:
"The implication: The recount will look like the first count, with the incumbent winning, if only by a hair — and a margin "not below three digits," Knaak said.
"The math isn't working for the Franken campaign, and that may explain the move of their recount headquarters to Washington, D.C., at least for now," Knaak said, with a twinkle in his eye and a poke in his words.
Elias never shy about playing to the press or throwing chaff (or stronger) at the other side:
But, hey, no problem. Elias, who has led other victorious recounts, keeps on ticking.
"I think we're going to win this recount," he said, with nary an if, and or but. "I have no doubt in my mind that Al Franken got more votes in this election than Norm Coleman, and the only question is whether or not Norm Coleman is going to continue to have his lawyers fight" and not have all the votes counted, Elias said.
5. Tales from the Crypt
Inspired by the Big E's courage and example yesterday in linking to Reichwinger reactions to the MN recount, your WineRev took a stiff glass of malbec (Los Alamos, about $11, Argentina; bold, sturdy, bracing with barbecued anything, stews, chili), put on his gear from "Gauchos Somos Us" and flung his bolas around the spindly legs of these specimens from the "politically putrid" wing feathers of the American landscape, reacting to the news of the Maplewood precinct and their 171 votes.
What you'd expect:
FedEx shipment at the Minneapolis-St Paul airport arriving soon with more missing ballots. Ohio sends its love.......
SNIP
I am NOT surprised that they have found some missing ballots. And I don’t care what precinct they found them in. That is page 4 of the dem playbook on stealing elections.......
SNIP
I just removed the twine from the Christmas tree I bought from the Boy Scouts. It’s a Minnesota Red Pine. There must be 150 or so ballots hanging from it. I’m gonna give them to the kids to cut them into snowflakes.
VERY tight tinfoil/ high paranoia level regarding the Franken Fascists (you know who you are!):
A week or so ago there was a photo of a double-marked Franken / Coleman ballot used as an illustration. Very noticeable was that the sloppy mark-in for Franken not only was fairly obvious attempt to spoil the ballot with an added entry the alignment of the Franken pencil mark was at an angle noticeably different from the other markings made by the original (Coleman) voter.
It is easy to tell when markings have been added by vote counters because those are fanned out across the writing surface in front of the political hack (so they can mark or spoil several ballots at one time) versus the solitary voter whose ballot is directly in front of them with the only variance being the angle favoring right or left-handedness which remains consistent across the ballot. Easy to tell the difference unless those officials counting the votes would make Mussolini blush with shame.
Signs of wit:
BREAKING NEWS:
Demolition workers taking down an 1870’s farm house 25 miles outside of Minneapolis found 246 ballots from this year’s senatorial election stuffed inside a plaster wall and wrapped in newsprint dated June 28, 1878. The ballots were taken to a local recount center where it was discovered that all 246 votes were for Al Franken. Local Democratic officials announced that this is further proof that the Coleman campaign is out to steal the election from Franken.
SNIP
The fact that Franken was even on the ballot tells you everything you need to know about Minnesota. The fact that the race is in a recount tells you everything you need to know about Coleman.
At this point who cares....The Senate basically has over 60 votes now on every thing. There are at least six repubs who are not repubs when it counts.
Hmmmm.....on that last one I'd be sort of curious to know who the 6(!) Republican Senators might be on various votes needing the famous 60 to break a filibuster. (Snowe & Collins might be 2, and if Specter continues his habit of walking to the White House for voting instructions he might be #3 if he stays in the habit and Obama can do a great GWB impression. But the other 3? Hmmmmm..)
Wednesday Morning Star Tribune
Kaszuba and Brown (or as you learned yesterday, "Kaszubanen and Brownson") get the front page headline which is a heartening, "Volatile pendulum swings to Franken." While not as good as "Franken gains lead" or "Senator-elect Franken praises Coleman for concession speech" at this point its nice to read. Their box score numbers are: Coleman's margin 303/challenged ballots 6000+/ 93% counted. If we sort K&R into our recount/challenge/absentee categories we get:
Recount: Sec. of State Ritchie sent a letter/e-mail to Joe Mansky of Ramsey County asking for an explanation re: the 171 votes uncovered in a Maplewood precinct. Coleman side sent some of their people over to review things with Mansky, saying they "were skeptical about the sudden appearance" of the 171. That's OK to wonder in my book but the way things seem to have turned out Mansky used his Joe POWER to swat this one down too, confirming what we picked up yesterday afternoon in pretty real time from TheUpTake: machine breakdown and human error in not running the 171 through the repaired/replaced machine for reading. Ballots had been safe under lock & key, just not realized by anyone they hadn't been counted election night....171 broke out as 91 Franken, 54 Coleman, 26 Barkley or other....2 metro area counties, Scott and Wright, each with over 50K votes cast, start their recounts today (while this seems like a lot, on the 2nd recount day Olmsted County (Rochester: Mayo Clinic; SE MN) did their entire 76K recount in one 14-hour day; so 50K in 3 days is hardly overwhelming with enough help.)
Joe POWER quote:
"Joe Mansky said the discovery of 171 ballots at the end of the county's 278,000-ballot recount proves the system works -- even when recounting 40,000 ballots a day as they did in Ramsey County.
"Our object here is to make sure every ballot gets counted as it was cast by the voter," Mansky said. "If we pick up some ballots that are not properly counted on Election Night, so much the better. That's a good thing. I don't see any downside."
Neither do we, Joe, and say this in all seriousness if the 171 had swung +37 to Coleman; this is how its supposed to work. Today it fell Franken's way. Notable that after Coleman camp's skepticism and concern that nothing further was heard from them; mute evidence of the force of Joe POWER and the transparency and accountability this recount continues to show.
Challenged: Nothing new added.
Absentee: The rejected absentee are expected to total about 12000 by the time the recount finishes Friday......The e-mail/letter sent out to the counties and cities (reproduced above in part 3 from last night) was sent out from the Sec. of State's Office by Deputy Secretary Jim Gelbmann without consulting Ritchie. Why? Because Gelbmann and the SoS staff are competent, intelligent, responsible people.
"(Gelbmann) said that because Ritchie's office was not entirely clear on what the Canvassing Board had directed it to do last week, they reviewed a tape of the meeting. "It was very clear," said Gelbmann, referring to the board, "... they wanted to know how many ballots were in the five categories."
Sounds like a staff I'd like to have, or even be part of. Way to go Jim Gelbmann and crew! (Not Joe POWER but the 1st letter in his name is the right one. Jim POWER! for initiative and careful work.)
Coleman's chief briefcase swinger Fritz Knaak said he was satisfied with the instruction letter because it called for sorting out the rejected absentee ballots into the 5 Piles. Since the Board had encouraged as much and such sorting was already happening last week Knaak simply shrugged it off. He also pointed out that none of those ballots being sorted were being counted (which sounds like a whole different issue to him, and I agree.)
Scraps and Leftovers
Of course having sounded reasonable and decent, Knaak then went on to sound like every lawyer every non-lawyer likes to hate. (Couldn't keep it up could you?)
You'll remember Knaak's counterpart on the Franken side is Washington DC lawyer Marc Elias. Elias went to see his family for a few days and has been staying in touch with Minnesota electronically (and flew back to MN last night.) But Knaak has to read something ominous into it:
Marc Elias, Franken's lead recount attorney, also said there was no significance to the campaign's decision to hold its daily briefings this week for reporters in Washington, D.C., a move Knaak described as further evidence that Franken's overall strategy was to have the U.S. Senate ultimately decide the race.
"I'm presuming he's strategizing with Democrats about his Senate floor strategy to ignore the will of Minnesota voters," said Knaak.
Yeesh.
0 LTEs but local columnist Katherine Kersten tries her hand at humor on the Senate contest on the front of the 2nd section. Kersten is more bad than good most of the time and kind of on the whiny side, but today she had her lefse and egg coffee for breakfast. Any sidebar that includes the phrases "ballots jammed in a vacuum cleaner" and "Chief Justice Al Gore" has high humor potential. Link:http://www.startribune.com/...
Hope this gives you enough to go on today. I gonna need extra coffee today in the Non-Cincinnati-Bungles mug if today's action is anything like Tuesday's. I'll be able to sip for a little while this morning with you as I've got the late shift. So that's the latest from yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.