Yesterday at 10:00am was the first meeting of the State Canvassing Board. It is THIS body that actually looks at vote totals in every election race, addresses problems, and, if a race is particularly close, calls for a Recount.
In a stunning development, not only is Franco still dead, the Browns still the greatest team in football, Sarah Palin still a mean-spirited, empty-headed fool, BUT the Board has now OFFICIALLY declared the governor's race and 3 legislative races so close (within 0.5%) that each of them will be recounted.
Just like the utter flip in the legislature, no one in Minnesota saw that one coming. We'll just have to pick up the pieces below the fold.....
CROSS POSTED AT MN Progressive Project
ECHOES FROM MONDAY
Before we leave Monday's oral arguments and decision by the Supreme Court I have to pause. Some of you around here are kind enough to say that you think I can write, and write well. There are days when I actually believe it, and I am grateful for your pats on the back.
But if you want to read some GREAT writing on what happened Monday there is no finer example that Jay Weiner over at Minn Post. Jay was a reporter who doggedly covered the 2008 Senate Recount with endless patience and excellent insights. His words often were in my diaries to help explain an issue or concept.
But Jay? You really soared in this piece from Monday. From lucky ties to pixie dust to "Groundhog Day" it was a tour d'force.
Sir, I doff (DOFF!) my hat to your work.
Jay's Monday
__________
A THREE HOUR TUSSLE
The Canvassing Board met for the first time Tuesday: openly, publicly, in front of cameras. Once again the people's business would be done in front of the people. It might be noisy or tedious or even tendentious to the point of tendonitis (even elevenonitis; some people's tendons go up to eleven you know) but it would be done transparently. Score one against the novo-fascists!
The Board heard a report from State Elections Director (and #3 man at the Secretary of State's office) Gary Poser. After crunching all the numbers in the first checking from all over the state he ADDED 3 to Tom Emmer's (R) pile.
"Man its rigged!" "Are those SQUIRREL ballots? (You know...anti-ACORN)" "Did those ballots arrive in Poser's car trunk?" "The election is being stolen!"
Well....that was refreshing! Just wanted to try out the screeching and slogans from 2 years ago whenever a state official did his official, open and transparent job and helped the other candidate ("Emmer isn't even a real American you know; just a disguised, secret plant from East-Communist Germany and supposedly planted in Indiana....without a birth certificate, even in German.....")
Yes the first adjusted, semi-final numbers showed Emmer gaining 3 votes net...and Dayton (D) gaining 18, so for now the difference between the 2 is +8770 in Dayton's favor. This is 0.42% so a Recount is in order under state law. The Board so ordered.
OPPORTUNITY LOST
.....and thus passed Tom Emmer's first moment to act like a gentleman, a statesman and an publicly honest man. He could have enacted a noble moment, brought back to life many public people you remember perhaps from your youth, Republicans and Democrats.
Here was a chance, a logical moment for Emmer to ask for a moment of the Board's time and say something like, "Thank you for all your hard work and the work of the local officials behind you. As hard as this is for me to say, I believe this reconciliation and re-tabulation shows there is no possibility of my overtaking Mr. Dayton's lead. I ask the Board call off the Recount and save $250,000 in taxpayer's money which we can ill-afford at this time.
I concede the race and congratulate Mr. Dayton. Lets now work together for a better Minnesota."
MAJOR WRANGLE 1
Didn't happen....sigh. What DID happen was Mr. Magnusson (late of the Supreme Court, now in private practice, with Tom Emmer for a client) asked for a reply to his letter from last week to SoS Ritchie which asked 2 things. First, he asked the Recount be conducted by matching up number of ballots to number of voter signatures in each precinct.
Familiar? Yep! Real familiar...as in, EXACTLY what Monday's Supreme Court petition was about! The one that got denied 90 minutes after orals ended and the microphones were still warm!
JeffRosenberg: Oh, good, we're having the same exact argument a second time!
--- Star Tribune live blog
In a surreal moment Board member and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (who took no part in yesterday's case) Paul Anderson said to his former colleague and boss, the former Chief Justice, Eric Magnusson: "Doesn't yesterday's Court ruling on this same subject render it moot?"
Magnusson couldn't deny the impact and had to fall back on the fact taht the Supreme Court had issued the order to deny with the opinion to follow.
Magnuson speaking now about their request. Anderson asks whether request for reconciliation w/ voter signatures is now moot given yesterday's ruling. Magnuson: "At this point in time, we don't know the basis for the courts decision."
So that seems the end of Plan B (couldn't get the court to agree, try the administrative board.) The Canvassing Board voted 5-0 to agree with Supreme Court: no redoing the reconciliation.
StribRoper: Board says they will not take action on the reconciliation request from Emmer camp. #stribpol
tomscheck:
The Board squashes Tom Emmer's motion to include reconciliation before recount. All said they didn't want to go against MN Supreme Court.
But this bugger may become a zombie issue this year and we might hear it again later. Magnusson said a bit ominously:
LiberallyLiving: RT @StribRoper: Magnuson hints at potential lawsuit if reconciliation request isn't granted
MAJOR WRANGLE 2
Then came the real wrangle: a 2 hour scrap (complete with a recess) on how the Recount should be conducted. (The reconciliation was part of this too but was dealt with fairly quickly.)
The big deal was over "frivolous challenges" and over 2 hours there were demonstrations of frivolity (only verbal; Sarah Palin did NOT appear, the very embodiment of frivolous.)
You see, in a Recount in each precinct an election judge will pick up a ballot and hold it up to be seen by two members the candidate's campaigns. The Emmer and the Dayton rep watch as the judge calls the ballot for one or the other. Before s/he puts it in the pile either one can challenge the ballot.
For what? Well the reasons have gotten shorter since last time (due to some reforms); the "stray mark" no longer counts for a challenge for instance. The change is the election official is empowered to say, "This is a frivolous challenge. Disallowed." (That is the challenge is denied, not the ballot. The ballot gets counted.)
Now on the one hand, if that call is a final determination imagine what a hard-core election judge who is a Tea Bag member could do, tossing out tons of Democratic challenges, calling them all frivolous. ("A ballot on the back of a gasoline receipt that says Emmer is not a proper ballot!" Frivolous challenge. Denied.")
On the other hand, if local officials can't make any calls at all then the State Canvassing Board is going to be frightfully busy. Furthermore, the new empowerment of local officials is then a fiction and NOT what the legislature had in mind.
On the third hand, last time saw both sides (although Coleman started it) challenging all kinds of ballots in order to keep the statewide vote totals for their candidate looking good. (If Coleman's people challenged 400 ballots and Franken's punted for the day, then the media stenographers would all fall down, worship and publish verbatim the GOP press release for the day: "Coleman surges; lead rises by 400! Surrender, Dorothy Al!"
You can see thats a pretty evenly balanced set of concerns and it produced yesterday's wrangle of what constitutes "frivolous."
Sec. of State Mark Ritchie was obviously determined NOT to let a boatload of challenges end up in the Canvassing Board's inbox. Paradoxically it was Magnusson arguing most stridently for just that for the Emmer side. (And 2 years ago he was as determined as anyone on the Canvassing Board to keep challenges at the Canvassing level to a minimum.)
The excellent Jay Weiner reported:
Leaning back in his high-backed leather chair about 30 feet away from Magnuson, Anderson bluntly asked the former chief justice: "If there are 6,000 ballot challenges and the spread is 8,770, are you seriously going to go forward and make us review through all of those?"
The unflappable Magnuson didn’t know what to say as nervous laughter filled the State Office Building hearing room.
Anderson helped him a bit: "That's a rhetorical question, I don't expect an answer."
Mark Ritchie was also vocal in answering Magnusson as the bloggers noted:
uptakemn:
Out of 6,600 challenged ballots in 2008, 5,600 were considered frivolous at huge expense: Ritchie. That's the price of democracy: Magnuson [via Twitter]
Stowydad:
Magnuson on frivolous challenge issue: "Sometimes following the law is inconvenient."
Finally, an agreement was reached, and there will be more talk. But for now they used a traditional Minnesota solution: make piles! Last time it was used for absentee ballots. There were 4 reasons to reject an absentee ballot and an (in) famous 5th pile (for absentee ballots rejected )improperly) for any other reason.)
Well that was then....5 piles, 12,000 ballots. This time we have... 6 piles!
Although local officials can reject ballot challenges they deem frivolous, the board will reserve the right to review those decisions. Recount officials will be instructed to keep six categories of ballots: votes for Dayton, votes for Emmer, votes for others, challenged Dayton ballots, challenged Emmer ballots, and the frivolous pile.
strib
ODDS & ENDS
While the last two days have been pretty high profile there's a lot of work going on rather unnoticed. One thing is the Emmer campaign continues to lean on counties around the state for all sorts of paperwork connected with the election. But the Emmer people are CHEAP (in a number of uses of that word) and the counties don't like it.
Freeborn County (Albert Lea; straight south of Minneapolis on the Iowa border) Auditor Dennis Distad sent a very stiff letter to Tony Trimble saying the county wouldn't send anything until the county got paid first. Trimble fudged the return, but I don't think Freeborn has sent anything yet. Joe Bodell has the story at MN Progressive Project:
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/...
Eric Black at MinnPost had a fairly sunny view on three angles of the Recount after Monday's court ruling. Upbeat and worth pondering.
http://www.minnpost.com/...
Dave Mindeman at mnpACT! has had his fill of the Recount and calls out the MNGOP for trying to stall out the recount (and invoke the Dark Scenario.) Downbeat and worth pondering.
http://www.mnpact.org/...
Are you a COMPLETE Recount junkie? Can't get enough of politics, ballots, challenges? Well then if the governor's recount isn't enough for you, here's a write up of one of the other 3 Recounts starting Monday, the one where the difference is 10 (yes 10!) votes!
http://www.minnpost.com/...
A long, tough day for everyone. Let Justice Anderson have the last word:
tomscheck:
Anderson: "All I want is to get this thing resolved so the people get the governor that they elected "
I hope this will hold you as a storm whips through Minnesota today. A happy Thanksgiving to all of the Kossacks and blessings on all you sit down with tomorrow. I'll put up a diary Friday or Saturday if anything happens in the Recount or here yust southeast of Lake Wobegon.
Shalom.