The beat goes on.....the beat goes on!
OK enough with the Sonny and Cher references (yesterday should have done that for you for the rest of the year....babe.) Recounting continued in the MN Governor's race between Mark Dayton (D) and Tom Emmer (R). Dayton's lead is steadily increasing, albeit slightly and the MN GOP doesn't like it one bit. How DARE the voters choose a Democrat?
The Nitty AND the Gritty below the fold.....
CROSS POSTED AT MN Progressive Project
The Nitty
According to the Secretary of State's office last night:
Dayton 919,249 43.6%
Emmer 910,476 43.2%
Dayton margin 8,773
Total vote recounted 84%
Dayton challenges 163
Emmer challenges 679
Those last 2 lines, challenges, are challenges that are definitely going through to the State Canvassing Board. They total 842 with 84% Recounted. This is pretty close to the numbers from 2 years ago. Then, the Board ended up ruling on about 450 Franken challenges and around 800 or so Coleman challenges. (And the total vote was almost 2.9 million then, vs. 2.1 million now.)
Mind you these are what you might call the "legitimate" challenges, ones that about everyone agrees "you know, Sven, ve really should have some-vone else take a look at dis." We know their heritage, their families; we can look at their Kenyan birth certificates.
If you'd like to see video of what a few of these look like the Uptake has some clips here:
http://theuptake.org/...
Where the fireworks are this time are the "illegitimate" challenges, known in passive-aggressive speak as "frivolous." These are challenges conceived in zealotry, gestated in cunning and delivered with malice, even malice aforethought. (Given the way they are piling up you can even say malice afivethought or asixthought.)
Frivolous challenges when so ruled by a local election official (like an utterly blank ballot for the governor's race, and the Emmer challenger in Washington County said they challenged, should be called for Emmer because it was blank!) are NOT pulled from the above vote totals. They are being tracked though, which is slowing things down and they ARE one-sided in the extreme.
The always excellent Jay Weiner reports from Hennepin County (Minneapolis; largest in the state, about 470,000 votes to be recounted in all):
At one (recount) table, 81 ballots were challenged because there were write-in votes for candidates other than the governor; Emmer representatives were calling the write-ins "identifying marks." That’s not how the law reads.
http://www.minnpost.com/...
How one sided are things getting? The Dayton team of number crunching wizards (several from the Franken team 2 years ago; very, VERY good at numbers; Like Data running on 220 instead of 110) are saying:
The Dayton campaign said that of the 2,776 ballot challenges Emmer workers have filed, 98.2 percent have been frivolous. By contrast, 39 Dayton challenges have been ruled frivolous, according to the campaign.
Fuller story from Bob von Sternberg (the Germans are here!) at the Star Tribune here:
http://www.startribune.com/...
COMBAT I
Things are getting so heated on these frivolous challenges the State Canvassing Board (which I think was not planning to meet until next week) has announced they will hold a meeting THIS Friday at 9:00am to wrestle with JUST frivolous challenges.
You can bet your donation dollar the Uptake will be there to air that one live.
Link here:http://theuptake.org/
Combat II
Hennepin County elections director is Rachel Smith. Fans from 2008 will remember her when she had the same post up in Anoka County and was affectionately known on the UpTake blogs as "Coffee Cup Girl" or CCG. She burst into fame (not flame) when the 2008 Senate Recount started in her county. She sat down with the Franken and Coleman lawyers to go over procedures and rules.
The Coleman team had over 600 rejected absentee ballots they had identified statewide that they thought were likely Coleman votes that they were trying to drag into the Recount. They said at the Anoka County meeting "We're not going to agree to recount ballots unless we can recount these too."
The Franken team (rightly) objected to this end run.
Rachel said, "Well I don't want to waste everyone's time like this. Meeting adjourned." 8 minutes. Sent them home without supper, or lunch, or breakfast, or even an offer of coffee--a serious slap in Minnesota. (Coleman team came back the next day and behaved themselves. Anoka recount was uneventful.)
Ms. Smith is getting fed up with the stall tactics in her county. She wants to increase the number of recount tables from 25 to 30. Attorney Tony Trimble for the MN GOP is objecting, threatening to take the county to court.
And the MN GOP chair, Tony Sutton (the Hutt; you can see the family resemblance to brother Jabba) has come flat out and accused her of "siding with the Dayton campaign". He also claims we "will not by intimidated by Smith."
Uh-huh. Tony? (Either one of you...) Rachel is 5'2" and 120 so you can tell how imposing she is, dominating a room like Lawrence Taylor loose in the backfield. She thinks you are trash talking her and as my Estonian street gangs say, she "ei votta sitta kedagist!" (If your Estonian is a little rusty, that translates as "ain't takin' no S*** off noBODY.")
"I only intimidate mice, in my office," said Smith, the 5-foot-2, 120-pound elections boss, with a chuckle.
A bit more here:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
The Uptake has video of the wrangling (although mercifully without Tony Sutton; merely the Tony of Trimble) at this link:
http://theuptake.org/...
Thought to Ponder
All this sturm und drang in Hennepin county is over Emmer's people/challengers. But thats not quite right. They are MN GOP people, advocating of course for their man Emmer, but...
Look, there have been signs of some differences between the Emmer campaign and the MN GOP. Sutton the Hutt has been the bomb-thrower while Emmer has been, well, calmer, with streaks of realism. Yesterday's diary noted a very classy statement from Emmer about the MN election system and those 30,000 poll workers in the state which stands in contrast with anything Tony Sutton has said in the last month (or longer.)
OK odds are its a certain good cop/bad cop routine but still...why is all the fury coming from the MN GOP (Sutton & Trimble)? Attorney Michael Toner has been low profile and understated. Emmer Attorney Eric Magnusson has also been careful, serious and understated.
Emmer himself seems to be aligning himself much more with the Toner-Magnusson camp than the Tony-Tony show. Is he making a path for a dignified exit/concession when the Recount and Canvassing Board are done on the 14th?
The Gritty
Far from the madding (and getting madder) crowds of Hennepin county most counties have finished their recounts. Indeed only 9 of the 87 are still counting and likely only Hennepin and maybe Ramsey (St. Paul) will go into the weekend unfinished.
How did it go outstate?
Wayne Stein is the Otter Tail County Auditor and thereby the county election director. He rode herd over the Fergus Falls courthouse to recount 25,178 votes. And they did.
As was often the case the totals between Dayton and Emmer did not change....at all. So thats that, eh?
Not for Wayne. The total recounted ballots numbered 25,177. Off by 1. 1 short. The sort of thing that bugs Wayne Stein.
Its a vote, damn it. Somebody is not being heard from and we are NOT going to silence them. The missing number seems to be in Sverdrup Township. Check everywhere. Look under the green jello with carrot shavings jiggling in the fridge. Turn over the trash cans. A vote is missing.
And they found it. Put it in a sealed envelope as instructed and brought it to Wayne. Wayne sent a 4 page email to the Secretary of State's office, an incident report on what happened.
And now fans of democracy, while the State Canvassing Board is going to convene Friday morning to wrangle and tangle over frivolous challenges, fans of democracy should come to attention in the Fergus Falls courthouse.
Wayne Stein has called in two election judges, and a representative from both the Dayton and Emmer camps. Friday morning at 8:30 (cue trumpet fanfare) the last vote of Otter Tail county will be examined, called, held up for challenge, and recounted.
Because its a vote. A voter has spoken. And thanks to Wayne Stein the intent of this voter will be heard. The People will express their will to rule themselves.
I doff (DOFF!) my hat to Mr. Stein. Well done, good and faithful servant.
Full story here:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
_________
There's likely more but I hope this will hold you with a lot of the latest from southeast of Otter Tail County and yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.