Minnesota Recount Stuck in the Mud
Minnesotans have been parodied for their politeness, but the state's Senate race seems to get nastier and nastier. With Al Franken taking a sliver of a lead by most estimates, the bitter recount battle halted Monday as both sides made a scene in Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office.
Minnesotans have been parodied for their politeness, but the state’s Senate race seems to get nastier and nastier. With Al Franken taking a sliver of a lead by most estimates, the bitter recount battle halted Monday as both sides made a scene in Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office.
Franken has won a number of key legal skirmishes, and now Norm Coleman’s camp appears to be stalling while it searches for a viable route back to the Senate.
TRUTHDIG’S JOURNALISM REMAINS CLEARMinneapolis Star Tribune:
With a Minnesota Supreme Court-imposed deadline approaching and the sniping among lawyers increasing, the U.S. Senate recount stalled today as the campaigns for Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken remained far apart on an agreement on improperly rejected absentee ballots.
Lawyers for the two campaigns publicly bickered this morning at a meeting held by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office, with the Franken campaign saying Coleman did little over the weekend to help reach an agreement over how many of the disputed ballots should be counted. While the Franken campaign said Saturday it wanted to count all 1,346 absentee ballots that local officials have determined were improperly rejected, lawyers for Coleman said today they had agreed to 136 of the ballots but would release a list containing “lots, lots more” later today.
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Still locked in a bitter recount battle for the right to represent Minnesota in the upper house, Al Franken's lawyer says he might take the matter directly to the U.S. Senate, which the Constitution allows to be the "Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members."
While Minnesota gets ready for a recount, it looks like one way or another the state's U.S. Senate race will be decided in court. With bad memories of Florida, Al Franken and Norm Coleman's campaigns are already arguing about whose vote should count and why.
Election officials in Rensselaer County, N.Y., are caught in the middle of a national embarrassment after a typo on 300 absentee ballots listed the Democratic candidate for president as "Barack Osama." Both Democratic and Republican officials in "Renassliare County" swear the error was accidental.
New rule changes and the increased popularity of absentee voting might mean results from Tuesday's election won't be known for some time.
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