Random Story Roundup

It's Friday, you know what that means don't you? Partying, partying and fun, fun, fun.

I couldn't resist that one on April fools day.

Now that you're in the proper frame of mind, on to the random goodness!

• Politico reported earlier in the week that former Senator Norm Coleman wasn't too bullish on the GOPs chances of taking Amy Klobuchar's Senate seat.
  
  

  I think it could be a tough year. She’s certainly strong. She’s got good numbers and good support. She hasn’t been a very polarizing force. Clearly, that's going to be a challenge.

  
  Did I say "wasn't too bullish?" From an insider like Coleman the above quote is about as close as you're likely to get to "we don't have a snowballs chance in hell."
  
  
• In November Nancy Reagan announced that the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, along with NBC and Politico, would host the first of the Republican Presidential nomination debates.
  
  Since than no one has actually announced they are running, at least no one anyone is taking seriously, leaving debate organizers in a dilemma, either they let the Bachmann's and Cain's of the GOP have the stage to themselves or they postpone the event until some actual candidates emerge.
  
  Not surprisingly they decided to postpone.
  
  

Bachmann leads field of non-contenders

PPP polled Republican Primary voters about their preferences for who should run for the Senate against Amy Klobuchar, not surprisingly Michele Bachmann leads the field, a field with very few possible challengers.

Public Policy Polling (12/10 Republican Primary voters, no trend lines):

Michele Bachmann (R): 36
Tim Pawlenty: 20
Norm Coleman: 14
Chip Craavack: 7
Tom Emmer: 6
John Kline: 5
Laura Brod: 4
Eric Paulson: 2
Some else/not sure: 6
(MoE: ±5%)

The Hill backs Coleman all the way

In an article published yesterday The Hill does its best to assist Senate Republican's push back against the emerging "Norm Coleman is a sore loser" meme. The article consists of eight quotes from GOP Senators in support of Norm Coleman and one quote from a Democratic Senator who, as you can guess, doesn't support Norm Coleman's legal efforts beyond the state level. What sort of gems can be found within such an article?

"I'll back Norm as far as he believes he should go," said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). "He's there on the ground, he's the one with the best information and he's a good and honorable man. It's very hotly contested, very close, and there's a lot of questions."

There certainly are a lot of questions, the FBI just so happens to be asking some of them.

"Norm is somebody I greatly respect, I think he has very good judgment, and he has a great sense of what ought to be done. It's his case and he's in the middle of it," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). "I know it's not damaging the party because I don't hear that. But I do think Norm is a very sensitive, thoughtful person and whatever Norm is doing I'm sure he believes is exactly the right thing to do and I support that."

As long as it's not damaging the GOP I guess its okay. I mean, who cares about the people of Minnesota who are underrepresented during perhaps the most important legislative session in at least forty years. After all, Norm is a sensitive, thoughtful guy, who would only do the right thing.

"This is about making sure every legal vote is counted, this isn't just about Norm Coleman. This is about protecting the rights of voters," said National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas). "It's to my mind a very noble endeavor and one in which, frankly, I admire his perseverence. [sic] I support getting it right, and if that includes a federal lawsuit, then so be it. I do think there are important legal issues that don't just affect Minnesota, or affect this race. They affect elections all around the country -- a uniform standard to make sure which votes are counted, and which are not."

John Cornyn wants you to forget that he doesn't care one bit about making sure every legal vote is counted and only about preventing Al Franken from being seated. Of course he is not challenged by the reporter with his past comments on the issue.

"Whatever he says," said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine.). "So much has been committed. He's obviously invested so much in time and commitment and money -- it's staggering -- so I think it's important that either side abide by the final process by which the final decision will be rendered. It would put your mind at peace with the outcome."

This is actually a sensible answer, from the only sensible GOP Senator quoted. She's right; so much has been committed by Norm, not just in terms of time and money, but in terms of his political career. He has committed the future of his political career to this election contest and subsequent appeals. The damage has already been done, so for him to give up now would be stupid.

"They know what to do based on their intimate knowledge of the case," said Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "I wouldn't presume to give them advice."

I can't tell if this is an attempt at humor or if Senator Kyl is serious. Either way it's funny.

"The question is, 'Should every Minnesotan's vote count?' And there are lots of votes out there that weren't counted, so the process ought to be played out until it's concluded," said Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.). "He should be able to exercise his options... There's a pretty good rationale for taking it to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Anyone who has actually paid attention to the recount and subsequent election contest knows that this is not quite what the question is. The question is "which votes should count?" No one, not even Norm Coleman, is arguing that every vote should count. It doesn't help when the media adds to the confusion by just regurgitating what uninformed Senators have to say. The question is, why does the media continue to come to Norm's defense?

"It seems to me, based on what I know, that (Minnesota) courts haven't fully understood that concept," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). "Therefore this might be a federal constitutional issue, that you're constitutionally required to count ballots by the same standard statewide."

It seems to me, based on what I know, that you don't know shit. The Minnesota courts (Supreme, ECC, canvassing board) understand the concept just fine and have been consistent and mostly unanimous in their rulings. All of these entities are bipartisan in nature, containing members of or appointees of all three major Minnesota political parties. It seems to me they probably have a better understanding of election law than a Senator from Alabama.

"There are very important issues involved -- constitutional issues -- and I have no qualms about saying that if he can, he ought to push it all the way," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "We're so sick and tired of having one set of rules for Democrats they don't abide by, and then another set of rules for Republicans. The Democrats didn't count the ballots the way they should and they didn't put the protections in that they should. It was the Republicans who were better at counting ballots and doing what was right and following the law. They don't do it on the other side as much."

I'm not even sure what Orrin is saying here and it would be nice if the reporter had asked him what the fuck he's talking about. Something like "What rules are different for Democrats than they are for Republicans?" or "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Instead Orrin was allowed to continue with his train of thought, or train wreck of thought you could say.

"I don't think it's hurting the party. I think we all realize it's so close and there's a lot involved here and I don't think it's hurt the state, either, because it hasn't hurt them either. It's always good to have two senators, but not when one may not be entitled to the position."

It hasn't hurt the state because it hasn't hurt the state. Nice! But you may want to ask your colleague Amy Klobuchar, you know, the lone Senator from the state of Minnesota, if she thinks it hasn't hurt the state seeing as she probably knows a little bit more about it than you do. As you can guess, there is no effort by the reporter to ask for a little bit of clarification as to why exactly the state of Minnesota hasn't been hurt by only having one Senator. We're just supposed to take Orrin's word for it.

Oh yea, I told you there was a quote from a Democrat, here you go.

"We believe the law of Minnesota requires a candidate to be certified after all the state appeals are through, whether someone applies to the federal court or not," said Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

So there you have it, eight quotes from Republican Senators with questionable claims that go unchallenged followed by one quote from a Democratic Senator explaining how the law works. Truly a marvel of political non-reporting. Kudos.

Coleman ballot universe continues shrinkage

Yesterday was not a good day for Norm Coleman's chance of returning to the US Senate. Not good may be kind. As you all know the only way that Norm Coleman can hope to win in the Election Court Contest is by somehow finding more votes to be included in the count and than receiving a large enough proportion of those votes once their opened to overtake Al Franken's 225+ vote lead.

Well, the universe of ballots in which Coleman hopes to find more votes continued it's gradual contraction when the Secretary of State announced the results of the sorting of pile 3 ballots. Pile 3 ballots were rejected because the voter wasn't registered, these were being opened to see if the voter had placed the registration form in the secrecy envelope instead of the outer envelope.

Out of over 1500 ballots about 89 might be counted.

I say about 89 because there is some discrepancy on the exact number, 88 has also been reported, and I say might be counted because they still have to meet all of the other legal standards for absentee ballots, like the voter didn't vote in person on election day.

VoteForAmerica has a run down of these ballots by county, the long and short of it is that they are likely to be about a wash.

The only apparent good news for the Coleman team lately was the MN Supreme courts rejection of Al Franken's request for a temporary election certificate. But even this was bad news. While denying Franken's request the court also stated that they, the MN Supreme Court, are the "court of proper jurisdiction" cited in MN election law as having the final determination on the contest. In other words, you won't get to appeal to the US Supreme Court Normie.

Seemingly every day that goes by brings more bad news for Norm Coleman and I couldn't think of a more deserving fella.

What is Norm Coleman's ultimate goal?

Every new day of the Senate election contest brings a new theory about what Norm Coleman's intentions really are. Is he just stalling to withhold the Democrats 59th seat? Does he want another election? Is the whole thing a PR move by the GOP to create a new galvanizing figure for fundraising? Does Norm even care? All of these theories have one thing in common, they're theories. All of the objective evidence suggests that Norm Coleman is waging this election contest because he desperately wants to keep his Senate seat and this is the only way he can do that.

A lot of people have been reading ulterior motives into the Coleman legal teams bungling of this case; as if the last eight years of Republican incompetence is not enough to convince people that maybe they're bungling the case because they're simply incompetent. When the inevitability of a recount became apparent the Franken campaign brought in some of the best legal minds in the country. The Coleman team tried to do it on the cheap by using some local guys. Their paying for that mistake now of course, but I'm sure at the time it was seen as a cost saving measure, they were going to win after all, why waste money on the recount.

There is some aspect of all these theories that may be true, but none of them on their own explains why Norm Coleman would sacrifice his future political career, he would only do that for Norm Coleman. All of these other motivations; Republicans wanting to keep Franken unseated as long as possible, the NRSC wanting to create the next direct mailing poster boy, Norm's day job, they all contribute to the higher purpose of Norm Coleman keeping his Senate seat.

I don't think Norm is throwing the election contest, I think his lawyers have been incompetent. I don't think the election contest is being driven by John Cornyn, but Norn will certainly take his contributions. I don't think the whole point of the election contest is to delay seating Al Franken, that's just one of the upsides for the GOP.

In any of these types of analysis it's important to keep in mind the principle of Occam's razor, which basically means don't assume things. Norm Coleman is in court, fighting the outcome of the election because Norm Coleman wants to be a United States Senator because without that he doesn't really have much.

Yet another example of the Coleman-Strib alliance

The headline reads "Norm Coleman reaches out to Franken on absentee ballots." The reality is that Coleman's legal team sent a letter to Al Franken, and the press, that asks him not to fight their attempt to have all of the rejected absentee ballots re-re-inspected. Which is, of course, in direct opposition to the position they took prior to the election contest being filed.

This headline would have been appropriate if, back in November, Coleman had decided to go along with counting wrongly rejected absentee ballots. But the Coleman team didn't do that did they? No, they refused to even consider the possibility of counting such ballots. It's understandable why the Coleman position has changed so dramatically, they don't have a choice. They need to find votes somewhere.

But for the Star Tribune to cast this effort as reaching out is nothing more than misinformation.

On January 21st they ran an article under the headline "Franken ratchets up legal fight." The article was about that day's hearing over Franken's motion to dismiss. The filing of a motion to dismiss is a default procedural move and is certainly not a case of "ratcheting" anything up. Coleman filing the election contest in the first place was a "ratcheting" up, a motion to dismiss is like checking on the big blind with 7, deuce off. The vast majority of the time nothing will come of it, but it doesn't cost you anything and hey, every once in awhile you can flop a boat. If the poker reference didn't make sense the point is that a motion to dismiss is trivial. It's a standard move.

This is all part of a larger PR push by the Coleman campaign and sympathetic media outlets like the Strib and the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Since the reality of a recount became clear the day after the election they've been building this story up, slowly at first, then as things started to go Franken's way the shrillness and lies came faster and from more directions.

With Norm Coleman seemingly resigned to his fate, having taken a job with a lobbying firm of all things, the question becomes how far does this get pushed? Will they appeal it all the way to the US Supreme Court, assuming it doesn't go their way? The more that Norm Coleman becomes detached from the process, the more it seems like the motivation for the effort is not his but that of the GOP leadership.

They are more relevant while the Democrats are short that one vote which will be critical for the issue they plan on making the biggest stand against, the Employee Free Choice Act. They fear Franken getting seated because there is at least one moderate Republican, Arlen Specter, who seems likely to support the bill. Specter plus Franken plus all the other Dems equals sixty votes for cloture. Another theory is that they are trying to build Franken up as a lightning rod for GOP electoral angst. Either way it now seems unlikely they will give up until they've exhausted all of their legal options.

The trial phase of the election contest begins tomorrow as the never ending Senate race enters yet another stage.

Rejected absentee ballots are being counted

You can watch the action live on The Uptake. Meanwhile Nate Silver is up with an analysis of the 953 rejected absentee ballots that will be counted; he's predicting that Franken will net 31 votes, extending his lead to 80. He throws cold water on the idea that Coleman has excluded many more ballots than Franken from the counting.

The apparent edge for Franken comes as each campaign has had essentially a unilateral veto to prevent any particular absentee ballot from being opened and counted. Initially, based on a review of the process in Democratic stronghold St. Louis county, it appeared that the Coleman campaign was being far more aggressive than the Franken campaign in exercising its veto. Information gathered by additional counties by the Star Tribune, however, suggests that this may not be the case, and that the Franken campaign has been at least as aggressive as Coleman in exercising its veto.

Also the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Coleman campaigns request to put a halt to the whole thing in order for them to change the rules to their liking. Lots of action going on today.

2006 to 2008, Part 2: the Senate race

Even though the winner is still up in the air, I think we have enough information to begin breaking down what happened and why.

When looking to make comparisons I think it is more appropriate to compare this year's Senate race to the 2006 Governor's race than to the 2006 Senate race. The dynamics between the 2008 Senate and 2006 Governors race are similar while the dynamics of the two Senate races are quite different. First of all the 2006 Senate race was for an open seat previously held by the DFL and the race featured a successful, dynamic and generally well liked woman against a generic GOP white male. In both the 2006 Governor's race and the 2008 Senate race we had a GOP incumbent running against a white male DLFer.

Let's take a quick look at the numbers from the two elections

2006

Pawlenty(R-inc) 47%

Hatch(D) 46%

Hutchinson(I) 6%

2008

Coleman(R-inc) 41%

Franken(D) 41%

Barkley(I) 15%

Obviously the biggest difference in the numbers is the amount of support received by the IP candidate. The few polls that tried to measure who Barkley was drawing votes from seemed to indicate that he was drawing about equally from both candidates, maybe slightly more from Coleman than Franken but look at this pollster graph:

Almost from the moment the election started Franken was losing support. Coleman, on the other hand, was doing okay until two things happened that began to bring his numbers down, Dean Barkley entered the race and the economy went south. In fact Barkley's peak conforms almost exactly to Coleman's low point. You can see that some of these people went back to Coleman before the election, as the ramifications of the bailout began to sink in and anger subsided a little, but the damage was done.

How many of these Barkley voters could have been persuaded to the DFL? Probably not many, too many people were turned off by both Coleman and Franken. A poll conducted by SurveyUSA on December 4th showed that if the election were held again people would pretty much vote the same way, meaning even though Barkley voters knew how close the race was and how much their vote really mattered they would still cast it for Barkley. The Senate race was a really nasty campaign so it's no surprise that many people still feel unable to vote for either major party candidate.

Another of the similarities between 2006 and 2008 to consider is that the DFL was somewhat divided on who to nominate. In both cases some progressives were disappointed in the DFLs choice and this disappointment carried through the entire election. I went door-knocking with more than a few people who were still not sold on Franken, even though they were passing out his literature. I heard similar sentiments in 2006 about Hatch. I felt the same way about John Kerry in 2004. It's difficult to overcome your chosen candidate's loss when you suffer from rabid True Believerism.

How do you bring a party back together after a closely contested primary? That was the question on everyone's mind even before we knew who got the Democratic Presidential nomination but in the end it didn't matter, that race was a blowout. The emergence of groups like PUMA goes to show that some portion of the activists will have a hard time getting behind the nominee, even when it's a once in a generation caliber candidate. There are a lot of activists that lie somewhere in the middle though and these people need to be given a reason to support a candidate, not just party unity, and that reason needs to come from the candidate.

How much of an effect this had in the end is hard to know, but in a race this close, that everyone knew would be close, any little thing can be huge. During a Presidential cycle when enthusiasm on our side was sky high, Franken wasn't able to generate any more enthusiasm than Coleman. In the closing days of the campaign the best reason the Franken campaign could give people to vote for their candidate was that he could provide Barack Obama with the Senate majority he will need to pass key legislation. How this became the campaigns closing argument I'll never understand, but it seems to me that a closing argument should explain why a candidate could best serve the people voting for them. The best the Franken campaign could come up with for this was that he'll vote with Obama.

I don't think it can be overstated how weak this argument is on its own, much less as a closing argument. During a campaign when Al Franken criticized Norm Coleman incessantly for voting lockstep with President Bush, the reason he gave people to vote for him was that he would vote in lockstep with President Obama. Among the many messaging mistakes of the Franken campaign this was the largest.

The thing is this; both Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty are smart politicians. They both ran with the advantages of incumbency and are very popular within the GOP base. That said the DFL had a shot in both races and a good one, even with a somewhat fractured base. You put a candidate like Amy Klobuchar in an open seat race with the party united behind her and it's no contest. The DFL has a structural advantage in the state and if the 2008 Senate race and 2006 Governors race can teach us anything, it's that we need to make an even bigger effort to consolidate our base in the future.

If there is one thing the Obama campaign can teach us at the state level it's that we should not be afraid of all the ways that the opposition can attack a candidate or that candidates perceived inability to win. We should instead focus on who we want to represent us and who can bring the party together behind them rather than trying to drag the party along with them. A really well run campaign helps too.

Coleman campaign continues stall tactics

Today in Anoka and St. Louis counties the Coleman campaign continued to try and stop the sorting of rejected absentee ballots, demanding that some properly rejected ballots also be included. In St. Louis county election officials identified 161 wrongly rejected ballots and the Coleman campaign requested that an additional 22 ballots also be included. Similarly in Anoka county election officials have identified 42 absentee ballots that were improperly rejected and the Coleman campaign refused to consider those ballots unless an additional 5 properly rejected ballots were included.

On a statewide level the Coleman campaign is requesting 654 properly rejected ballots, mostly from strong Coleman counties, be considered in addition to the 1,346 improperly rejected ballots that the county election officials have deemed were rejected in error. I don't know if it was on purpose or not but adding those two numbers together is 2,000 which must be some sort of magical nexus of absentee ballots that results in Coleman netting more than 50 votes.

That was the other thing that happened today, the Canvassing board met to clean up some bookkeeping and that resulted in Franken gaining four more votes. So now the lead is at 50 votes. Out of 2.9 million. Amazing.

MDE reaches new levels of hyperbole

(From Minnesota Democrats Exposed, 12/24/08)

"2.9 Million Disenfranchised"

That's the headline of the post. Can you guess why 2.9 million will be disenfranchised? Come on, one guess?

The Supreme Court ruled today that 2.9 million voters in the state of Minnesota be left disenfranchised.

Whoever guessed the Minnesota Supreme Court wins a fruitcake. Seriously, anyone want a fruitcake?

Somehow the Minnesota Supreme Court turning down Norm Coleman's petition to delay certification until the duplicate ballot issue is resolved means that all 2.9 million Minnesota voters have been disenfranchised. This is very high level critical thinking we are dealing with. 133 = 2.9 million. I don't know the exact formula used to make that calculation, but I assure you it must be some advanced statistical algorithm that was specially developed to analyze this issue.

That or Ryan pulled it out of his ass.

Even if you accept the argument that double counting could have happened, and there's no evidence that it did, it doesn't mean 2.9 million voters were disenfranchised, it means up to 133 voters got twice the enfranchisement.

Duplicate ballots have become an issue in this recount, 

And why is it that duplicate ballots have become an issue? Was anyone talking about duplicate ballots two weeks ago? No. The only reason that there is an issue is because the Coleman campaign is desperately grasping at any chance to overturn what has become increasingly inevitable, Al Franken will be certified the winner of the election.

anyone who cast a vote in this election should be gravely concerned that their vote may not matter as much as someone else.

Gravely concerned? Really? What about all the people who properly cast absentee ballots that were subsequently rejected? Should they also be gravely concerned? What about all the dead DFLers who voted? They are already gravely concerned, should they be more concerned? What's this about dead DFLers voting?

Team Franken should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for the words in their statement that was released following the Supreme Court's ruling: "We win in Supreme Court."

So let me get this straight. Norm Coleman's campaign files a petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court to halt the certification. The ruling by the Supreme Court, a unanimous ruling by the way, goes in Franken's favor. The Franken campaign responds by saying that the ruling was in their favor. What part of this is shameful?

Team Franken sees winning as turning a blind eye to 2.9 million rightful votes.  Al Franken has showed that he does not care about the integrity of the process, he cares only about a title in front of his name.

This is world class hyperbole. I have wonder if there is some specialized training one needs to create such an immense monument to over the top hyperbole. Truly a sight to behold.

This has only begun what will make this process longer unfortunately.

As long as you keep up the tremendous work Ryan, this process couldn't go on long enough.

How ‘bout a nooner?

The counting of challenged ballots finally got underway yesterday, but the canvassing board only managed to get through 152 of the Franken campaigns challenges, with well over a thousand left to go and maybe more. The counting will resume again at 9 am and the board should finish with the Franken pile today.

At the end of the day yesterday the breakdown of the Franken campaigns challenges was 95 for Coleman (62.5%), 19 for Franken (12.5%) and 38 for other (25%). If these percentages hold Coleman would net 221 votes from the Franken challenges. Applying these percentages to the Coleman challenges is a little trickier, because there is no firm number of Coleman challenges right now.

At this point the Coleman campaign has nothing to gain by reducing its challenges, they are simply playing for time. So, they don't know how many ballots they've challenged, they are possibly adding challenges back and possibly withdrawing more. Using the number of 1000 Coleman challenges as a default and the same vote spit that Coleman is getting in Franken's challenges, Franken would net 500 votes. The difference in those two totals, 279, would give Al Franken a 91 vote margin.

In other recount news the MN Supreme court will hear arguments about whether counties need direction in how to sort improperly rejected absentee ballots (IRAB's) today at 1 pm and the Franken campaign filed suit in Olmsted county over their decision to not count a handful of absentee ballots that supposedly weren't rejected. Some counties are still sorting their rejected absentee ballots and some are schedualed to, while others are waiting for the Supreme Court ruling. At the moment, with 48 of 87 counties reporting, I still project the number of IRAB's to be around 1,150 using the Star Tribunes numbers, which doesn't match up with the almost 1,600 projection coming from the Secretary of State.

The Uptake will be live streaming for those who think five guys discussing penmanship is fun.

AP analyses challenged ballots finds Franken advantage

An AP review of more than 5,000 challenged ballots reveals that Al Franken stands to gain ground, enough to possibly put him over the top. Some of the findings;

"Among challenged ballots that easily could be assigned, Franken netted 200 more votes than Coleman."

"More than 400 possible Franken votes were being held up on grounds that those voters identified their ballots through write-ins, initials, phone numbers or some other distinctive marking. At least 300 possible Coleman votes were in limbo for the same reasons. "

 "Franken could also get a boost because a few more of his potential supporters than Coleman's were among the nearly 600 ballots that had two filled-in ovals as well as crossed-out votes, an X above or below their darkened oval, or different-size partial marks in more than one oval."

The first pile alone is enough for Franken to pull ahead. The signature/identifying mark pile also favors Franken, but some of these ballots have the potential of not being counted. For clarification the AP article includes this:

"Ritchie said a ruling in the state's 1962 gubernatorial race recount found that the mark had to have been made with the voter's intent to identify the ballot."

This would seem to cut down on the amount of ballots rejected for having a signature or other identifying mark. As an example, I've seen ballots where a change was made in the vote and the change was initialed by the voter, as they would do on a check. According to Ritchie, these ballots would be counted.

A Daily Kos diarist also spent the weekend going through challenged ballots and has posted his findings which seem to support the AP's analysis.

The challenged ballot counting begins on Tuesday and is expected to go till Friday at which point we should have a much better idea about the pre-trial phase outcome of this race.

Recount Update.

Al Franken got some good news today when the State Canvassing board unanimously decided to include improperly rejected absentee ballots, by some estimates expected to be as high as 1,600, in the final recount total. Also decided were two Hennepin county ballot quandaries. The election night results will stand in place of the missing ballots in ward 3, precinct 1, and the 12 uncounted absentee ballots will be counted as part of the fifth pile count.

The decision regarding the IRAB's, which has been at the center of the Franken campaigns recount efforts, is big news. It's still unknown how counties who have previously refused to sort their rejected absentee ballots, like Ramsey, will respond. The State Canvassing board did not require county election officials to sort the rejected absentee ballots, only asked them to. The new wrinkle added was that the Canvassing board also instructed counties to open the IRAB's, count them, and include them in the election totals. The Canvassing board will than make the decision to include them in the final tally or not.

With these ruling's it's exceedingly unlikely that this won't end up in court. Even the Canvassing board seemed resigned to the fact that no matter what action is taken, on either issue, court proceedings will follow.

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice G. Barry Anderson had this to say about including the election night results from ward 3, precinct 1:

"Some court, some judge, somewhere, may reach a different conclusion. That's how the process works."

Shortly after the Canvassing board meeting the Coleman campaign announced they would ask the State Supreme court to require counties follow consistent standards when counting the IRAB's, the first in what is sure to be a long series of court challenges as the Coleman campaign now switches to a defensive position. Without the inclusion of the IRAB's it was going to come down to the wire and all rest on the Canvassing board's interpretation of the challenged ballots. Now it looks as though Al Franken may be the clear favorite to win the recount.

The actual vote totals of the IRAB's remains unknown, but according to pre-election polling, Franken was running at about an 8% advantage in early/absentee voting. The total number of IRAB's also remains unknown, the Star Tribune is currently reporting the total at 692, but estimates range from 1,000 to 1,600. In analysis posted yesterday I projected the final IRAB total at 970. Adding today's updated numbers into the mix that projection now stands at 1,038.

But wait, there's this. In Duluth about 40% of the city's 319 rejected absentee ballots, or about 127, were rejected improperly. This is far above the 10% IRAB rate seen statewide, apparently the reason was election officials misunderstanding of what constitutes a properly signed ballot, dated or not. St Louis County has yet to report but this would add about 95 extra votes to the projection, taking it to 1,133. If Al Franken wins the IRAB's by 8%, that is a 90 vote margin, at 5% Franken would net 56 votes. Either outcome would likely be decisive.

In light of this good news word is that the Franken camp will be withdrawing 750 more challenged ballots. This is a no brainer as the Canvassing board clearly seemed upset about the volume of challenges it was facing.  Secretary of State Mark Ritchie made his feelings clear.

"I'm not happy about this."

The ballot challenges were part of gamesmanship that was going on during the recount and now that things are moving in Franken's favor he has no need to play that game anymore.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the Franken campaign withdraw even more challenges.  On the other hand there is no incentive for the Coleman campaign to withdraw anymore challenges because they will want to stall as much as possible, hoping for vindication in the courts.

Previously I predicted that the Canvassing board would punt on the IRAB's and let the courts deal with the issue in an effort to avoid possible litigation. Instead the Canvassing board, it appears, has the goal of counting all the votes and not doing whatever it can to avoid eventual litigation. For that I applaud them. In the final analysis Minnesota voters who properly cast a ballot should not be denied that vote for bureaucratic or clerical reasons. 

Next up, adjudicating the challenged ballots.

What's ahead for the recount?

Things will start to get interesting again in the Senate recount on Friday. That's when the Canvassing Board will meet to decide on the fate of rejected absentee ballots as well as figure out what to do about the 133 missing ballots in ward 3, precinct 1. Also up in the air, the 12 uncounted absentee ballots from Hennepin county found during the search for those 133 missing ballots. Hey, we're not Florida, we just visit in winter.

What to do with the pile of improperly rejected absentee ballots will prove the most consequential decision. It seems likely, as there is precedent for it, that the election night machine results will be used in place of the 133 missing ballots in Hennepin County. As for the 12 uncounted absentee ballots, if they're counted the most votes either candidate could realistically hope to net from those would be 3 or 4. If the candidates garner the same support as they did in Hennepin County as a whole (using election night results) Franken would gain 6 votes, Coleman 4.3 and Barkley 1.5, for a net Franken gain of 1.7 votes.  

As you'll recall Secretary of State Ritchie asked all of the election officials to sort through rejected absentee ballots and divide them into five piles, with the so called fifth pile representing absentee ballots that were mistakenly rejected. Right now the Star Tribune is reporting that election officials have found 244 improperly rejected absentee ballots, with only 14 of the 87 counties done sorting. However some counties aren't sorting at all. 

Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky had this to say about why his county had decided against sorting absentee ballots:

"(Our) advice is, we probably need some direction from a court."

Only 56 counties are listed on the sorting schedule on the Secretary of State's website. Five, it appears, have decided not to sort their rejected absentee ballots at all, being listed as "will not participate." That leaves 16 counties that may or may not sort their ballots. With all that said the majority of counties are sorting their rejected absentee ballots and 14 counties have completed this process representing 15% of the pre-recount vote total. From this information we can extrapolate how many ballots will be in the final total under a few different scenarios.

First we need to figure out the rate of improperly rejected absentee ballots, or IRAB's. To do this I will only use data from counties that have completed sorting their rejected absentee ballots, as those counties in the process of sorting don't provide data about how many ballots they've sorted through, only how many IRAB's they've found. In the counties that have completed their sorting 150 IRAB's have been found, out of 45,241 total absentee ballots, for an IRAB rate of .0033.

Scenario 1 is that all improperly rejected absentee ballots are counted in all counties. There were a total of 292,535 absentee ballots counted in the original count, apply our IRAB rate and we get an additional 970 ballots being included in the total under this scenario, which is close to the Franken campaigns estimates that there were 1,000 such ballots. Scenario 1, however, looks to be the least likely scenario barring court action, though under those circumstances it might be the most likely outcome.

Scenario 2 occurs if we accept that only the counties listed on the sorting schedule provided by the Secretary of State will actually sort their ballots, and that those sorted ballots will be counted. Under this scenario 676 rejected absentee ballots will get added to the ballot totals. 

Scenario 3 is that the Canvassing board decides not to count the IRAB's at all. This is the most likely scenario, mainly because the other two scenarios are unlikely. Since not all the counties have sorted their rejected absentee ballots scenario 1 is physically impossible and I don't think the ad-hoc approach of scenario 2 will fly with members of the Canvassing board. For those reasons they'll probably decide that it's better to leave it to the courts to sort this matter out.

In an analysis of this issue a few weeks ago Nate Sliver predicted that if there were 1,000 IRAB's, Al Franken would gain 25-100 votes. The current IRAB rate suggests that will be the case, meaning this will only grow larger as an issue no matter what happens. If the Canvassing Board decides to count these ballots expect the Coleman campaign to go apeshit.

So my predictions are; the election night totals get used in ward 3, precinct 1, the 12 uncounted absentee ballots will be counted and what to do about the IRAB's will be left up to the courts. If all of that is correct then we're back to waiting for the challenged ballots to be adjudicated to learn who the winner is of the pre-trial phase.