Franken leads +225.
Today, 9:30am CDT in room 300 of the Minnesota Judiciary Building, where 7 weeks of trial were held, the Secretary of State's office will open and count the last ballots of the 2008 election for US Senator from MN.
SOOooooo, for the first time in ages, feel free to use this diary as a LIVE BLOG with your recommends and tips. Add your comments and your cheers for democracy before your eyes!
A few comments past the Orange fold......
Handy links:
The Uptake (Citizens Choice!):
http://www.theuptake.com/
WCCO TV:
http://wcco.com/
KARE-11:
http://www.kare11.com/
Democracy Unleashed
After 154 days, or exactly 22 weeks since November 4, the last ballots of the 2008 MN Senate election will be counted TODAY. 400 ballots have arrived from across the state, including 5 that arrived yesterday just before the noon deadline in a car from Freeborn County (due south of Twin Cities, on the Iowa line; no word if said ballots were in the car trunk for the drive! Some Reichwingers early on the recount accused the Franken folk of just this and have kept it up even after the governor denied it.)
Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann announced 13 of the 400 ballots had already been counted, either on Nov. 4, or during the hand recount. No word on how/why these 13 have been included in the 400.
Judges Hayden, Marben & Reilly of the Elections Contest Court (ECC) have examined these ballots and their accompanying paperwork (ballots applications, information from the county if an absentee voter was registered, etc.) as they have come in. We should hear THIS MORNING just how many of the 400 have been ruled IN and will be counted. (And they may even rule on a last few this morning. We'll see.)
State elections director Gary Poser, last heard and seen January 3 reading off 933 absentee ballots "Franken, Franken, Barkley, Coleman, Franken, Coleman, Franken, Barkley, Niemackl..." will once again do the honors.
Once opened, outside envelopes -- which contain voters' names -- will be separated from the security envelopes that contain the original ballots, said Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Poser will then sort the ballots into three piles -- Franken, Coleman and other. By noon, judges should have an actual count and add the numbers to the candidates' tallies.
The Numbers
Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks, floats in the LEM alongside a feverishly working Fred Haise. Lovell calls back through the tunnel to the Apollo 13 Command Module to Jack Sweigert (Kevin Bacon), "Jack, I'm gonna need your gimbel numbers BEFORE you shut down the command module!"
He switches on his radio, "Houston, I need a check of the arithmetic on these conversions. My roll/cal angle is.... pitch is...yaw is..." and on the ground mechanical pencils speedily scribble down Lovell's numbers. As the music strains, engineers squint anxiously at......their SLIDE RULES, working the multiply/ exponential/ and or logarithm sticks, and take a close look through the magnifying lens of the hairline cursor in the slider. A series of "thumbs up"s and "OK" hand signals go up to reinforce the head nods and the capsule communicator says, "OK Jim. We'll go with those numbers."
WineRev floats in a third floor apartment in St. Louis Park MN (using WHAT for anti-grav you ask? HAH! This MAC OS X update REALLY rocks!) feverishly scratching a quill pen across parchment and signals the Kossacks, "Houston, I need a check of the arithmetic on these conversions because our Colemanizer has been hit by a spinning Ginzberg."
"Copy the spinning, Rev. You've got serious time pressure here so lets go with the numbers."
"Roger that. My Franken lead is +2-2-5. My last Frank-Cole-Bark reading from the ECC OrderCount was exactly 400, but with a minus 13 that I can't assign yet. My Coleman Overtaker is +2-2-6. So Houston, what I'm getting is 400 total, 226 from the Coleman Overtaker leaving 174 to go. Do you copy?
"Roger that, Rev. Copy you at 174."
"So Houston, for the Coleman Overtaker to really blow out the entire SM (Service Module or Senate Member) no more than half of 174 can feed into the Franken Booster, or 87? Do you copy Houston?"
"Hang on Rev, we're checking it now..." (Faint, tiny sound of slide rules moving; muffled sounds of fast huddle of engineers, TomTech, Vote for America)
"Ah, Rev, this is Houston. The engineers say yes, if the Franken count reaches 87 you, Sweigert, Haise and Lovell and the Markos Mob can rest easy about the Coleman Overtaker. No chance for that to happen.... Standby Rev.....WineRev? Additional point from Purdue Slide Rule & Mathematics Department. 87 is the threshold with a 400 total. If your total ECC reading is below 400, you can lower, repeat lower, your threshold by 0.5 for each number below 400. Copy that?"
(Sound of orders: "Fredo, go with those last numbers. Jack? OK to shut down the Command Module.") "Roger Houston. So you're saying if our ECC OrderCount at 0930 hours Houston time is, say, 390, then our threshold Franken Senate Booster number goes to 82?"
"Thats affirm, WineRev. You and your crew can rest easy when the Franken count goes to 87, but it could be less than that. It will not, repeat not, be more."
"That is good news, Houston, good news. 87 is a clinch."
"Roger that, Kos."
"Say Houston, Jack wants to know about the condensation issues in powering up the command module. We swing through the ECC Decision Belt past final, but then..... Supremes, Houston?"
"Rev, tell Jack ah..... we'll see. The Colemanizer may quit after the ECC, or after the Supremes. The Ritchie-Pawlenty Certificatus Electionus crater could issue. We'll just have to take that as it comes."
"Roger that, Houston. Jack says it still sounds like driving a toaster through a car wash and believing it won't short out...."
After Today
1. The Election Contest Court (ECC) needs to rule on a couple groups of ballots already counted that Coleman wants out (the Mpls 133 and the supposed double counted 100) which, if allowed, would take 146 off of Franken's lead (net loss.) They may well rule on these by themselves OR
2. The ECC issues its final ruling on all the disputed points AND declares one candidate has received the highest number of votes. Loser has 10 calendar days from the date of this decision to file an appeal to the MN Supreme Court or the ECC decision is FINAL. Appeal to the Supreme Court is preceded by a bond being posted by the losing /appealing party.
A bit unclear as to the SIZE of this bond. Some here have said it is merely nominal, like $500 to cover the cost of officially generating papers and serving them on the other party and notifying the court with an official filing. Others hold bond is in the amount of costs incurred SO FAR (in the ECC; side issue if this would also include winning side's attorneys fees--- unlikely but I've not seen anything definitive so far) PLUS something more to cover the MN Supreme Court costs.
3. MN Supreme Court could deny hearing the case ("It is so open & shut...."), but this is most unlikely. If they take it, appellant has 15 days to forward ECC transcripts and evidence to Supremes. MN Supremes would schedule oral arguments, probably rather quickly, then take it all "under advisement."
Lawyer TerribleTom raised an interesting angle a few days ago. At this point it seems its possible the MN Supreme Ct. could rule on the case and issue its opinion with all the details and legal stuff LATER (like months from now). This would let the case be considered FINAL.
4. Whenever the case becomes FINAL by MN law for a US Senate election the Governor's office prepares a certificate of election, the Governor signs and it is countersigned by the Secretary of State. If either won't sign the winner of the senate race could file for a Writ of Mandamus (as in "mandate, mandatory" "You must..."; from the Latin mandatum, which by the way, also lies behind the Christian's day this Holy Week of "Maundy Thursday", where Jesus has a final meal with his disciples and gives them several mandatums: Take. Eat. Drink. Do this in remembrance of me. Love one another as I have loved you. All imperatives or mandates...). The MN Supreme Ct. could so issue such, that a state official perform said duty on pain of felony and imprisonment. Pretty drastic, but on the books.
5. Winner takes Certificate of Election to US Senate. Senate seats winner as McConnell and Cornyn both fold like a couple of worn out lawn chairs in a high wind.
Pawlenty Speaks
Governor Tim Pawlenty had an MSNBC interview yesterday with Norah O'Donnell and said he would not move to issue a certificate of election now (which is quite a legal and reasonable position.)
Much less reasonably he said it could take "months" until the appellate process is finished, and hinted strongly that would mean the federal courts.
The nut of it here:
O’Donnell: If this three-judge panel tomorrow, after counting these ballots, says that Al Franken has the lead, will you sign the election certificate that makes him Senator Al Franken?
Pawlenty: The Minnesota Supreme Court said in a recent decision that a certificate shouldn't issue or -- isn't likely that it should issue until the state court process has run its course. That would include the appellate process. It's pretty clear that one side or the other's going to take that next step, Norah, and it wouldn't be appropriate for me or anyone else to step in front of it. It's frustrating that this has taken so long but we need to get a proper and just and accurate and legal result and it’s going to take, it looks like, a few more months to get that.
Whole Transcript here:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
Sounds like Pawlenty has gotten a pointed e-mail or 2 from the RNC or Mitch McConnell. This is the strongest he has yet said he will wait for the process to play itself out in federal court (although he didn't put it that point blank. Tim IS a politician you know.)
Blois Olson at MN Post has an interesting backgrounder on the tangled relationship between Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty that is in play behind the scenes:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
The Ballots
But enough about governors and senators of blather!
Let the lawyers rise but also..... let the Court enter and stand aside.
There are 400 votes here....from the people. 400 from the lame, the halt, the blind, the afflicted. 400 votes from 400 voters who are old, hurried, harried, victims of strokes or disease or accident.
But 400 votes of the people..... by the people.....to help decide which of their fellow citizens SHALL BE REDUCED IN RANK for a period of six years and be made their servant. If rule is not by blood, if rule is not by might, if rule is not by wealth, but if rule is by the PEOPLE, then those elected SERVE..... the people.
Call me naive or a hopeless, mystic romantic. Yes the people make mistakes: how else to explain 59,000,000 in 2004 re-electing the shrubus patheticus? Or Inhofe? Or Liebermann? Yes they can be seduced through a sexy grin like Bachmann or Palin or by a bourbon in the lemonade called "Old Earmark" for the home district/state like Stevens or Murtha. They can even be whipped into a jingoistic frenzy against some perceived foe like by a Cheney most Foul.
But not always and not for long. Someone will always stand in front of tank in Tiennamen Square in '89, or hold hands 300,000 strong along 600 miles of the Baltic in '89 to say, "WE decide." Someone in '03 will put up an Orange website and say "I'm here to talk politics and elect progressives." Just enough somebodys in '06 will get together enough to say, "We CAN elect a servant like Jim Webb; George Allen--- go home." All kind of somebodys in '08 can stand together and say, "We CAN elect a black man president and begin to live down our shame and live up to our calling, and we can do it in Virginia..... and North Carolina.... and Florida...." Yes. We. Can.
Mr. Lincoln? It has been 7 score and 6 years since you spoke of a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." We are still "testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." And Mr. Lincoln? On this day, starting at 9:30 in the morning, in your frontier town of St. Paul, MN, just down river from Ft. Snelling, there will be a counting of votes..... of the People. Votes from equal people created as men ...and as women too, Mr. Lincoln, as Cady Stanton & Susan Anthony made a ruckus about in your day. Votes from people created equal with color bold enough to endure an African sun, the children's children's children of those you emancipated. Votes from those who came from everywhere to dig in the mines, log the forests, plow the land. Votes from those who fled here because there was no place else in the world to flee.
And Mr. Lincoln? You can watch them do it on a fancy little machine that uses some of the ideas of the telegraph machines of your day.
Here's a bit of music for watching democracy happen. It was originally supposed to be written for soldiers and sailors, but Mr. Copeland the composer changed his mind and decided his "Fanfare" would be for the Common Man and the Common Woman.... the people. (And Mr. Lincoln, as you enjoyed commenting on the flat feet of an actress during a theater play, you might enjoy how much fun that fellow on the drums has, and the full cheeks of some of the brass men.)
http://www.youtube.com/...
WineRev stands and doffs hat in presence of the votes....of the PEOPLE, all of them, even those I disagree with, and even those who live yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.