Welcome to the liveblog of Friday's meeting of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board (hereafter SCB), direct from Room 15 in the State Capitol in St. Paul. The hot questions before the board today:
- What to do about 133 missing ballots from Dinkytown (Minneapolis Ward 3 Precinct 1).
- whether or not to count improperly rejected absentee ballots (hereafter IRABs). As usual, the Republicans are against counting all the votes, while the Democrats are for it.
Based on early reports from various counties, yesterday's Pioneer Press opined that about 2000 IRABs are still uncounted statewide. It stands to reason that a disproportionately high number of these are from college students, the disabled, and other Dem-leaning demographic groups. Yesterday's front-paged diary gives one heartbreaking story of disenfranchisement.
Summary. This was a good day for Al Franken. The election night results from Dinkytown will be accepted. The SCB seems to be on track to accept IRABs if and when they come in from the counties; and if they don't come in, clear legal recourses exist to get IRABs from non-compliant counties included. Thanks to all for your patience.
10:54 The motion did pass, and with a few parting shots at the numbers of challenged ballots, the board has adjourned.
10:49 The question has boiled down to whether the SCB will indicate to the counties that they are likely to approved amendments to their local canvasses based on IRABs. There appears to be resistance to any kind of pre-approval.
10:42 Ritchie wants to move to accept IRABs that come into the SCB from the counties. Magnuson believes that move would be premature. Cleary seems to side with Ritchie for reasons of expediency.
10:37 Justice Anderson raises caveats to counting IRABs, mentioning that sometimes obvious errors are not obvious, and reminding the board that the SCB is not a fact-finding board. Cleary moves to request recommend the county canvassing boards reconvene and separate rejected absentee ballots categories by rejection reasons. Magnuson will vote in favor, but with reservations, since the SCB cannot force the county to do anything, and since there are other legal recourses. (Motion passes.?)
10:27 Cleary also seems to want to count IRABs, even though he had voted in the last meeting not to count rejected absentee ballots. He argues the SCB should go ahead and recommend to the counties that they find and count IRABs. Chief Justice Magnuson, speaking immediately afterward, agrees. But, Magnuson notes, the SCB cannot force the county to comply. In that case, the candidates still have legal recourse.
10:24 Gearin sounds like she really wants to count the IRAB's. Apparently some county canvassing boards have already met to consider the IRAB's. Some counties have declined to even sort the absentee ballots pending today's SCB meeting. Swanson notes that there are legal proceedings for either candidate can make (both county court and Supreme Court) to correct errors.
10:17 AG Swanson opines that the SCB can request local canvassing boards to reconvene to consider IRABs. Discussion ensues.
10:12 After the voluntary sort of rejected absentee ballots from across the state, Jim Gelbman testifies that 13.2% were rejected improperly, implying that about 1596 ballots statewide would have been rejected improperly. Interesting note: of all rejected absentee ballots, about 40% (!!) were rejected for undated signatures by either the voter or the witness. These are properly rejected ballots and will not count.
UPDATE: I was wrong about this: see FischFry's comment.
10:07 Chief Justice Magnuson has moved to accept the machine totals from election night. The motion drew 2 seconds immediately, and has passed unanimously. Great news for Franken! If this is appealed all the way up, no doubt Magnuson and Anderson would have to recuse themselves. An interesting possibility.
10:03 The board questions both AG Swanson and Riechart on specifics. No indication yet how they're leaning. 2030 signed in on election night, with the machine tally being 2028. The recounted ballots number 1896.
9:59 Riechart has recommended to the SCB that the election night tallies be used for Dinkytown. AG Swanson is reviewing legal precedents for this.
9:55 The missing envelope, marked 1 of 5, had fewer ballots than would have been normal. The search seems to have been quite thorough. The envelope was probably checked into the warehouse where ballots were stored, but it has not been seen since. Riechart's going through the math to show that the ballots are indeed missing.
9:46 Moving on now to the missing Dinkytown ballots. Cindy Riechart, Director of Elections for Minneapolis, is explaining to the board what happened.
9:45 Mark Ritchie has proposed a procedure for reviewing challenged ballots, with an eye to both ballot security and openness. After some discussion, Ritchie's plan is adopted.
9:40 Judge Gearin gives both campaigns a tongue-lashing regarding challenged ballots, and especially frivolous challenges. Chief Justice Magnusson echoes her comments.
9:37 The SCB has waived its attorney client privilege for the AG's opinion. I have a copy now: the AG has given her opinion that IRABs should be counted! This is very good news for Franken.
9:35 Mark Ritchie tells us that the fire marshall has disallowed standers. A live feed has been set up in the cafeteria. The standers are leaving, which gives the room a sense of some relief. The Agenda and Minutes have been approved, with correction to the mintues.
9:33 We all stand as the board arrives. The room goes silent. There is a moment of place-shuffling to make sure all members are seated before working microphones.
9:28 Swanson has taken Gilbert's place at the circular table. Raschke and Eller from the AG's office are seated beside her. The board itself and SoS staffers are not yet seated.
9:24 With the crowd now filling nearly every square foot, the organizing ability of the DFL and Franken campaign is awesome to behold. Pre-printed stickers saying "Count Every VOTE" are visible on a large fraction of the spectators. Attorney General Lori Swanson has arrived, looking sharp in a beige suit. It's zero degrees outside today, but the crush of people will keep this room toasty.
9:17 David Lillehaug, former US Attorney and now a Franken recount attorney, has arrived. The public in the room seems overwhelmingly DFL to me: a lot of union jackets visible here, plus the occasional beards and berets seen at any meeting of progressive types. TV cameras have been set up in strategic places.
9:10 The public was admitted at 9:00 (I got in earlier by telling them I was a blogger) and has already filled every chair and a lot of the standing room. Mark Ritchie was here early, looking natty in a charcoal-gray suit. Eric Eskola of WCCO radio is prominent in his signature wool scarf. The witness table has a placard for Gary Poser of the SoS's office.
9:06 The official agenda for today's meeting:
- Call to Order
- Approval of minutes from previous meeting
- Update on withdrawn challenges
- Overview of challenged ballot procedures
- Discussion of counting of Dinkytown
- IRAB's
- Recess
9:00 am. With the meeting set to start at 9:30, let's get a few preliminaries out of the way. The SCB has five members: Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, Chair (DFL, or Democrat to you non-Minnesotans); Chief Justice Eric J. Magnuson of the Minnesota Supreme Court; Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson of the Minnesota Supreme Court; Chief Judge Kathleen R. Gearin of the 2nd Judical District; and Assistant Chief Judge Edward J. Cleary of the 2nd Judical District.
Magnuson was appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (Republican); Anderson was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Gov. Arne Carlson (Republican) and to the Supreme Court by Gov. Pawlenty (Republican). Gearin was elected to the bench in 1986, and re-elected repeatedly since then; prior to joining the bench, she had been a prosecutor and a teacher. Cleary was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jesse Ventura (Independent).
Also having placecards at the large circular table in Room 15 are three officials from the SoS office (Kate Mohn, Jim Gelbmann, Bert Black) and three from the AG's office (Kenneth Raschke, Alan Gilbert, Christie Eller).
State Attorney General Lori Swanson (DFL) has already issued an opinion to the SCB on whether the IRABs should be counted; however, the contents of that opinion are covered by attorney-client privilege and have not been released. Given the general preference in these parts for open government, I wouldn't be too surprised if the SCB released that opinion today.
The "semi-offical" recount tally, ignoring all challenged ballots, has Coleman leading by 192 votes. The unofficial tally from the Franken campaign, which includes challenged ballots according to their view of the likely challenge winner, has Franken leading by 2 votes. Thus an extra 2000 votes floating around may very well swing the election.
The "semi-official" tally is from news organizations, and is based on the election-night results from Dinkytown, home of the infamous missing envelope with 133 ballots. The missing envelope apparently has a net of +36 votes for Franken.
Note that withdrawn challenges to ballots are still excluded from the semi-official total; the SCB will meet next week to return those ballots to their proper places. Since the Coleman campaign has withdrawn a few dozen more challenges than the Franken campaign, don't be surprised to see the semi-official margin swing in Franken's favor by a few dozen votes next week. Franken's unofficial margin should not change, however.