From Jerry Policoff: The Minnesota Review Board went through about 1600 ballots today and Franken went from a 5-vote deficit to a 249-vote edge. Clearly most of the ballots examined today were Coleman challenges, and most were frivolous. There were also apparently some that were challenged by Franken, though I was under the impression that all of those were dealt with Wednesday and Thursday.
Monday they will be examining thousands of previously challenged ballots where the challenge was withdrawn, but there were several examined today that fell into that category, so I am not sure how the ones reviewed today differed from the ones they will look at Monday. Any review of previously challenged ballots should favor Franken since it is pretty apparent by now that the vast majority of Coleman challenges were frivolous. Franken withdrew more challenges than Coleman did, but a lot of Franken challenges involved under votes or over votes where he hoped to get credit for decisions that originally did not go his way. He picked up about 50 votes that way on Wednesday and Thursday. I think it is reasonably safe to predict that Franken will emerge from this phase of the recount ahead. Still to be resolved is how to deal with about 150 duplicate ballots that the Coleman camp is insisting may have been counted twice. Duplicate ballots are only generated when the poll workers believe that the original was not scanned due to a machine malfunction or something of that ilk. Some of them may have been counted twice, but certainly not enough to make a significant difference. Coleman is simply looking for any excuse he can think of to delay and obfuscate the process. In the end every precinct that has even a single duplicate ballot will have to start over and again recount every ballot by hand if Coleman prevails on this. In the meanwhile these ballots have been excluded from the recount. The fact that the Coleman people challenged one ballot solely because the voter wrote on it "thank you for counting my vote" should tell you all you need to know about how they are treating this process. Finally the matter of the improperly rejected absentee ballots needs to be addressed. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against the Coleman motion that they not be counted, at least not during the recount phase, but their ruling seems unnecessarily complex, and it will further delay things. First both camps must examine every envelope and must agree that it should be counted. Then they will be counted, but as in phase one, both camps will be free to challenge their call (one of the Supreme Court Judges dissented from this part of the decision saying that the board should be the sole arbiter). There may be as many as 1600 improperly rejected absentee ballots, and the consensus seems to be that they are likely to favor Franken because they come mostly from heavily Democratic precincts. At this point the odds would seem to favor Franken, but this thing may not be decided for weeks yet, and a court challenge is sure to follow the final ruling. Franken is almost certain to prevail, but one goal of the Coleman tactics seems to be to raise questions about the legitimacy of a Franken win. I have to say that I am terribly impressed by the transparency of the Minnesota process. The entire thing has been live-streamed, and every ballot where there was the slightest disagreement has been projected for all to see. Jerry Policoff 1115 Wheatland Avenue/ G-3 Lancaster, Pa. 17603 Home phone/fax: 717-295-0237 Cell: 717-682-4434 www.progressives4pennsylvania.com www.healthcare4ALLPA.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
