Franken campaign decries frivolous challenges

Al Franken’s campaign believes it’s spotted a pattern in their opponent’s ballot challenges.  “And that pattern is that if you vote for John McCain, it is inconceivable — inconceivable — that you didn’t also intend to vote for Norm Coleman,” said Marc Elias, the Franken team’s lead recount attorney, wielding a stack of 10 challenged ballots at a press conference today. “I think it’s clear now, at least in some instances, there are challenges being lodged that are clearly frivolous.”

On some of the ballots challenged by the Coleman camp the voter had filled in a circle indicating support for John McCain, but failed to pick a favorite in any other contests. In others the voter simply split their ticket, opting for McCain in the presidential contest, while endorsing Franken in the Senate race.

The DFL campaign intends to ask their GOP rivals to examine all challenges made so far to eliminate any such ballots where there is no credible question about the voter’s intent. Elias said the Democrats would undertake a similar vetting effort his weekend. “Where there have been challenges that have been launched by someone who was over-exuberant, we have said we will withdraw,” he noted.

During the first two days of the manual recount, there were 734 challenges made, with an almost equal number coming from the Franken and Coleman camps, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Those ballots will ultimately be examined by a five-member statewide canvassing board charged with making the final call on whether the voter’s intent can be clearly determined.

The Franken campaign also released some new figures from the recount at the press conference today. They differ from the numbers being tabulated by the Secretary of State’s Office in two significant ways. For starters, their figures include all ballots recounted through the first two days of the process, even if they came in after 8 p.m. (when the SOS’s office posts its daily updates.) Secondly, the figures offered by the Franken campaign are based on the election official’s initial decision on a ballot. In other words, if the election official determined that a ballot should be counted for Franken, but that decision was subsequently challenged, they would still count it in the DFL column.

With those two caveats in mind, the Franken camp argues Coleman’s lead has shrunk to fewer than 100 votes during the first two days of the recount. What’s more they believe that the portion of the electorate yet to be recounted skews slightly Democratic. Specifically, they figure that 51.5 percent of the votes remaining to be recounted in a two-way contest went to Franken, while just 48.5 went to Coleman. “The undisputed fact is that there are more Democratic areas and votes left to be counted than there are Republican,” Elias said.

Video via the Uptake