Al Franken

Glaringly absent from Al Franken's statement after the State Canvassing Board certification are any words to the effect that that he had won more votes than the other candidates in the race.  [I trust I don't need to remind anyone that it's the number of votes that has historically determined elections in our country (with the Presidency and its attendant Electoral College selection process delineated in the Constitution as the exception to this rule).]

Sure, Franken says "This victory is humbling," and "this was a hard fought victory," and "with tremendous gratitude for the victory we won..."

But nowhere is there any talk about voters. 

Give Franken credit where credit is due.  Franken cannot talk about votes.  Because even he and his legal team know they stand on shaky ground when it comes to the actual number of votes Franken received.  What Franken won -- for now -- is merely "victory" in the process so far. 

A process, as noted by the Wall Street Journal this week as "Funny Business in Minnesota," in "which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate [Franken]." 

Two Minnesota DFL lawmakers are planning to introduce legislation that would give Minnesota voters the power to appoint U.S. senators in the event of an unexpected Senate vacancy.

The bill, proposed by State Rep. Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley and Sen. Ann Rest of New Hope, would require a special statewide election to fill such a vacant seat. Current law calls for the governor to appoint a replacement.

The proposed legislation comes in the midst of an ongoing recount in Minnesota for GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's seat (at last count, Coleman's DFL challenger, Al Franken, led the recount by 50 votes) and in the wake of an ongoing controversy in Illinois, where embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested earlier this month on federal corruption charges for trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Blagojevich defied officials Tuesday and appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to replace Obama.

A two-page story in the latest issue of Time magazine by Joel Stein sings the praises of the ongoing Norm Coleman-Al Franken recount – though Florida might not be too happy with some of the story's comparisons.

"What if the 2000 presidential election had hinged not on a diverse, messy, weird and slightly creepy hick state like Florida but on the most organized, practically and cordial one in the union: Minnesota?" Stein asks. "What if, instead of going to court after court over hanging chads and butterfly ballots and whether a recount should happen, election officials had just calmly looked at each ballot and tried to figure out what the voter wanted?

"That's exactly what's going on in Minnesota, where 2.9 million voters left Sen. Norm Coleman just 215 votes ahead of 'Saturday Night Live' star Al Franken. Since then, both sides have politely allowed a legally required hand recount to take place, one with very clearly specified rules and no scheduled end date."

Three nonpartisan political groups are asking Minnesota's election officials to recount every "properly cast" ballot in the 2008 U.S. senate election, including absentee ballots that were rejected "in error."

A coalition that includes the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Common Cause Minnesota and Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota said its goal is to make sure the election process is conducted in a "fair and transparent" manner.

A recount of ballots cast for incumbent GOP Sen. Norm Coleman and his DFL challenger, Al Franken, is ongoing. The state canvassing board is scheduled to meet next week to review the challenged ballots, and has set Dec. 19 as its deadline for certifying the results of the election.

According to the Minnesota secretary of state's office, with almost 99 percent of the ballots counted, Coleman leads Franken by 687 votes. However, a total of 6,655 ballots have been challenged by the two campaigns, 3,375 by Coleman and 3,280 by Franken.

It isn't too much of a surprise that the number of challenged ballots has shot up much higher than the official gap between U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Al Franken. Thus, it looks like everything is going to come down to what the State Canvassing Board decides. Tomorrow they are set to deal with the controversy over absentee ballots.

For thoughtful remarks from non-partisan observers in the field, be sure to check out Citizens for Election Integrity MN's recount blog. Their work is a joint effort of CEI-MN, League of Women Voters Minnesota and Common Cause Minnesota. More about their efforts. Interestingly, at this time it's reported that Becker County is missing 48 ballots across three precincts.

Hennepin County has provided unexpectedly rough results for Team Franken; Larry Jacobs from the U of M's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance told the PioPress that "The Franken campaign is going to win or lose based on what happens with the absentees."

FiveThirtyEight.com has been the statistician's go-to website during the campaign season and its proprietor, Nate Silver, earned a lot of credibility by projecting the results of the presidential election quite accurately. On Sunday, he projected that Franken would win the recount by 27 votes, mainly based on the notion that challenged ballots would mostly break for the DFLer. Despite the increasing rate of challenges, yesterday Silver thought his models still showed a Franken win. His guide to the four major types of challenges was kind of fun.

Always up for the oppo research challenge, Michael Brodkorb at Minnesota Democrats Exposed razzed Silver as a "former Daily Kos contributor."

As we wait around for the virtual tie to get resolved, one potential solution, Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), has been getting positive buzz from around the spectrum: liberal Strib writer Nick Coleman and former GOP U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger agree that IRV would make this problem go away. Coleman points out we've only elected one governor with an absolute majority in the last five elections. Durenberger points out that election campaigns would be pitched more to the center than the party bases, which would make races more amiable and competitive. FairVote Minnesota is promoting the implementation of IRV.

The Strib and PioPress have fun interactive recount Web apps.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) joked with the PioPress editorial board that she will "get all the inauguration tickets" if the count is unresolved. Of course, the GOPers have been trying out an anti-Washington message by hinting that those sneaky Senate Democrats will try to take the seat by fiat.

The Minnesota Historical Society has put up a video about the 1963 recount, drawn from the KSTP-TV Archive, featuring the major players of the day, and explanations from Acquisitions Librarian Patrick Coleman (Yes, he's the mayor's and Stribber's brother, and PIM can report he knows exactly where all the best stuff is hidden in the vaults).

There are much smaller recounts happening in Senate District 16 and House District 16A; In 16A, it looks like DFLer Gail Kulick Jackson of Milaca will still be the victor over GOP Rep. Sondra Erickson (R-Princeton). In Senate District 16, it appears DFLer Lisa Fobbe of Princeton will still be the victor over Republican Alison Krueger of Big Lake. They were competing for GOP Sen. Betsy Wergin's seat, as she got appointed to the Public Utilities Commission.

The Secretary of State has posted unofficial results for House District 12B (PDF).

Of course, other Midwestern locales have their own recounts: an Iowa Senate seat in Waterloo went for Democrat Jeff Danielson by 22 votes, giving the Dems 32 Senate seats to the Republicans' 18, a net Dem gain of two (they picked up two or three in the House) . Danielson also got elected as Senate president pro tem, so it's a good day for him! Democratic State Reps Dolores Mertz of Ottosen and Wes Whitead of Sioux City also squeaked by, as statewide turnout reached 72%, not too bad considering they spend longer in the formal election cycle than any other state! Iowa Republicans are complaining that Dems took a huge advantage through absentee ballots.

More U.S. Senate recount headlines:

• Recount mixup prompts dispute in Ramsey County, Star Tribune
• Mounting recount challenges delay finish, St. Cloud Times
• Saga of one absentee vote is a hint that many twists are still in store, Pioneer Press
• Former Franken worker helped with ballot recount, AP
• Senate recount: Ballot confusion arises, Bemidji Pioneer
• Tension rises as recount enters 2nd week, AP
• Next key step in Coleman-Franken Senate recount happens Wednesday, MinnPost
• Vote tallies in county were close to the mark, Alexandria Echo Press
• Q&A with the Lizard People voter, News Cut - MPR

Best of the Blogs and Think Tank Thoughts:

• Franken to Ritchie: 'Ballots have gone missing' — so find them, Minnesota Independent
• Breaking recount news, Let Freedom Ring
• Klobuchar sees bright spot in prolonged recount, The Political Animal

A left-leaning watchdog group is keeping an eye on what the national media is saying about Minnesota's U.S. Senate recount.

In an e-mail Wednesday afternoon, Media Matters for America, a self-described progressive research and information center that monitors, analyzes and "corrects conservative misinformation" in the U.S. media, listed a half-dozen instances of national media repeating incorrect facts about the recount.

The statewide recount of 2.9 million ballots began Wednesday. At last count, only 215 votes separated incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, from his DFL challenger, Al Franken.

"As the list below (indicates), media coverage of the Minnesota recount has been rife with inaccuracies, falsehoods and uncritical reporting," the Media Matters e-mail said.

Here are the instances reported by Media Matters:

Photo by Bill Klotz.

Remember that old Jim Croce tune?

You don't tug on superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim?

Somebody should tell Al Franken's legal team that in Minnesota, you don't mess around with Ken.

As in Ken Raschke, the long-time Assistant Attorney General who penned the official Attorney General Opinion sought by DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie on the issue of whether Minnesota law allows the review of rejected absentee ballots.

Today the State Canvassing Board voted to give itself more time to decide the issue.

Here (PDF) is Raschke's legal analysis, no doubt also researched and authored by the other two lawyers from the AG's office, Solicitor General Alan Gilbert and Deputy Attorney General Christie Eller.

Here (PDF) is the Franken legal team's "Supplemental Memorandum" on the Raschke's opinion.

Incredibly, the memorandum reads, "With all due respect to the Office of the Attorney General, the November 17 letter contains significant errors."

For those of you who didn't attend law school, one of the first things you learn is that any time you say, "with all due respect," you're really telling the other side, "f*#% you."  Most lawyers avoid the phrase like the plague. 

And smart lawyers never impugn the integrity of the full-time attorneys in the Attorney General's office. These lawyers refrain from insulting the AG's office not only out of respect for the public office, but also because they know that what goes around comes around. The AG's office is a permanent part of the legal structure.  The AG lawyers assigned to different areas have usually practiced in those different areas a long time. They know what they're talking and writing about. 

That's certainly true of Ken Raschke. He has weighed in on many an AG's opinion on election matters over the years, and Minnesota lawyers on both sides of the aisle highly respect him. [See page 8 of this document detailing Raschke's career. ]

The Franken legal team's Memorandum contains other hilarious stuff. What Republican won't chuckle over Franken invoking Bush v. Gore? The Franken team says the AG's office "neglects the Equal Protection recount requirements set forth" in that decision. 

The Franken lawyers also argue a Washington Supreme Court case, McDonald v. Sec. of State, mysteriously overlooking the not inconsequential facts that the Washington Court was interpreting Washington law, and that the Washington elections system -- where about 75% of the voters vote a mail-in ballot -- is Washington's apples to Minnesota's oranges. [Our state, of course, does not have mail in ballots.]

The Franken Memorandum is so insulting and so off target that it begs the question, "Why submit it?"

Norm Coleman's legal counsel, Fritz Knaak, was asked that question today, and he answered that he thought the Franken legal strategy was to set up the public relations rubric [my words] whereby the Democratically controlled U.S. Senate can seat Franken, no matter how our recount turns out, under some semblance of alleged authority.

The Franken lawyers signing the Memorandum are lead counsel David Lillehaug and Steven Kaplan from the Frederickson & Byron firm and William Pentelovitch from the Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand firm.

But the betting among Republican lawyers I talked to is that the Memorandum was likely drafted by the other part of the Franken legal team, led by U.S. Sen. John Kerry's lawyer Marc Elias.

Lillehaug and the other Minnesota lawyers know better: You don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind...

Are you heartily sick of the Norm Coleman vs. Al Franken cliffhanger? Can you handle one more perspective on it?

New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins has a good one.

"Right now, the incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman, is about 200 votes ahead of the Democratic challenger, the former comedian Al Franken," Collins writes. "In a race where 2.9 million votes were case, Coleman is leading 41.99 percent to 41.98 percent.

"You may note that there are a lot of percents missing. They went to Dean Barkley, an underfunded Independence Party candidate who did rather well by running on a platform that boiled down to: 1) Not crazy 2) Not Norm Coleman 3) Not Al Franken."

Four judges will join Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie on the state canvassing board next week to certify results in the state's U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and his DFL challenger, Al Franken.

At last count, only 206 votes separated the two candidates.

Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson, Ramsey County District Court Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin and Ramsey County District Court Assistant Chief Judge Edward Cleary will be part of the canvassing board.

Under state law, the canvassing board is headed by the secretary of state and must include two state Supreme Court justices and two district court judges.

The board, which will resolve disputes over ballots that were challenged during the recount process and certify the results, will convene at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The recount will begin the next day.

Hours after a liberal Minnesota organization called for an investigation into possible ethics violations by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the senator said he would welcome any such probe.

Alliance for a Better Minnesota, a self-described "progressive" group, sent letters to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, calling for a full investigation into recent allegations that businessman Nasser Kazeminy illegally funneled $75,000 to Coleman.

The alliance also posted a petition seeking an ethics investigation on its website Wednesday afternoon, urging readers to sign it.

Former Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger has decided not to represent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., as preparations are being made for a recount of Tuesday’s race between Coleman and DFLer Al Franken.

Coleman led Franken by roughly 500 votes as of Wednesday. They both received 42 percent of the vote. The result triggers an automatic recount that state law requires when elections are decided by less than one-half of 1 percent.

Heffelfinger, who served as U.S. Attorney from 2001 to 2006 and now is an attorney at Minneapolis law firm Best & Flanagan, said he doesn’t want to get involved in the recount while he leads an independent review of law enforcement planning and tactics for the Republican National Convention (RNC) in September.

Heffelfinger, in a statement e-mailed to reporters by the city of St. Paul, said:

Minnesota election results pages:

• Secretary of State: statewide results
• Hennepin County: election home page / interactive map / text data
  
• Ramsey County: Whole county results
  
• Anoka County homepage
  
• CBS News
• New York Times
• CNN
• USA Today
• Minnesota Public Radio results

National results and polls:

• FiveThirtyEight.com has been the gold standard for polling this cycle, including caveats for today's exit polling.
• More about exit polls from Pollster.com
  
• CBS News / CBS Mobile
• USA Today
• AP video feed
• CNN / CNN Mobile
• New York Times

Blogs and other sources of interest:

• Smart Politics @ the Humphrey Institute
• Real Clear Politics - TechPresident - Slate - Drudge Report
• Top national / local blogs: DailyKos and RedState / MnPublius and Powerline
• Voter assistance at OurVoteLive.org by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• BradBlog.com: looking into voters' problems (Oprah's machine almost didn't record her vote for president!)
• Twitter Vote Report, Twitter channels #mnvotes and #votereport (more about Twitter today)
• Get some much-needed humor @ The Daily Show's Indecision 2008 blog and The Onion's War for the White House

At the Republican Party's election party in Bloomington, the mood  is casually expectant. The state has already been called for Barack Obama,  and other results are trickling in.

Several moments ago a whoop went up when FOX News showed Rep. Michele  Bachmann with a 4-point lead over challenger El Tinklenberg with 19 percent of precincts reporting, but the excitement was short-lived. No one made much noise  when FOX showed Sen. Norm Coleman slightly ahead of challenger Al Franken with a handful of  districts reporting. This is clearly a crowd that operates on more  solid evidence than that.

So far the most notable thing to report is that there is nothing  notable to report. There is steady buzz of discussion, about what  you'd expect at a wedding reception while everyone waits for the bride  and groom to show up.

Minnesota in the last 10 years has been governed by the likes of Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty. And as commanding as these governors and assorted legislators have been over the years, Minneapolis-based voting reform group FairVote Minnesota is reminding folks this election cycle that these politicians won their office with less than 50 percent of the vote.

In the 2006 gubernatorial race, Pawlenty got 46.7 percent of the vote over DFL challenger Mike Hatch’s 45.7 percent. Independence Party candidate Peter Hutchinson got 6.4 percent in the 2006 race.

Ventura, an Independence Party politician, in 1998 received 37 percent of the vote to beat out DFL-turned-GOP St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman and former DFL Attorney Gen. Skip Humphrey.

So go elections in which the winner with the most votes takes the prize, according to Jeanne Massey, FairVote Minnesota’s executive director. Massey said Minnesota's U.S. Senate race today will also be decided by a plurality. Coleman, who is now the incumbent GOP U.S. senator, and his challengers Al Franken, a DFLer, and Dean Barkley of the Independence Party will repeat the trend, she said.

Massey and her group have spent the last several years advocating what they see as a solution called instant-runoff voting (IRV). Voters in a three-way race using IRV rank the candidates in order of their preference.

Last Friday at precisely 3:06 p.m., we published our PIM Weekly Report. In our lead story about the Minnesota U.S. Senate debates I wrote, "The first of three debates sponsored by Debate Minnesota, the Rochester debate will be moderated by KSTP TV's Tom Hauser and WCCO AM's Jack Rice.  The 90-minute format will include time for two-minute answers, and about half an hour of questions from the audience."