Anoka County found more ballots, official tells stunned court in Senate election trial

Anoka County Elections Manager Rachel Smith during the recount.

Attorneys for former Sen. Norm Coleman pounced on an end-of-the-day revelation in his election contest trial: Three uncounted absentee ballots (with votes for Coleman) from overseas were discovered by election officials only since Wednesday. The news came just before adjournment for the day in testimony from Anoka County Elections Manager Rachel Smith before a stunned courtroom.

Also appearing in Anoka: A set of six more absentee ballots still in the envelopes in which voters mailed them back and several more rejected ballots that officials now say should be reviewed.

Within minutes, Coleman’s camp was crowing in the hallway outside the courtroom. “The ballots that were found today in Anoka stand in marked contrast to remarks the [Al] Franken campaign had the nerve to make” about the completeness of the recount before the Minnesota Supreme Court today, said Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg. “The finding of the ballots is just another illustration of how illusory that count is.”

“In that precinct [where the ballots were found] Sen. Coleman had three more votes in the recount than he did on Election Night,” Ginsberg said. ”We’re optimistic about those [other newly found ballots containing votes for Coleman].”

Most of Anoka County lies in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, which re-elected Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in November.

Some of the ballots turned up during a data-practices-act search, hidden behind accompanying voter registration materials, according to The UpTake.

Also after today’s proceedings, Coleman spoke to reporters. “I did not misrepresent,” he maintained, when asked about comments he made on Sunday suggesting that Star Tribune reporters intentionally played to DFL Party cameras last October in asking him about allegations of financial mischief.

The discovery of three uncounted absentee ballots in Anoka County resolves one of the discrepancies in precinct tallies that Coleman complained about in a Jan. 21 court filing, according to Daily Kos blogger Tomtech, who was interviewed on the “Quick on The UpTake” program on radio station AM950 Thursday night. Here is the exhibit from that Coleman affadavit listing three missing ballots: