andy barr

The Minnesota Supreme Court will not wade into the murky issue of allegedly double-counted ballots in the U.S. Senate contest. Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign believes that in some instances both duplicate and original ballots were mistakenly included in the manual recount. It had asked the state’s top court to enjoin the canvassing board from certifying any election results until the issue is resolved.

In the aftermath of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board request today that counties sort absentee ballots to find any that were wrongly rejected, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign pledged to petition the state Supreme Court for uniform standards of sorting for counties to follow.”[T]here is [sic] no longer any uniform, statutory levels or standards by which legally rejected absentee ballots are being considered and reviewed in Minnesota,” Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said. Franken attorney Marc Elias responded: “There is a uniform counting standard in Minnesota: It is the election code of Minnesota.”

The statewide canvassing board passed two motions this morning aimed at ensuring that every properly cast vote is include in the U.S. Senate recount. The five-member panel, which includes four judges and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, agreed to accept election returns from a Minneapolis precinct that includes 133 lost ballots. The canvassing board also passed a motion recommending that county election officials sort rejected absentee ballots into five piles — four piles of ballots rejected for valid reasons, with the fifth pile representing votes mistakenly left out of the initial tally. This could presumably pave the way for such votes to be included in the recount.

The Minnesota Independent liveblogged and tweeted (at MnIndyLIVE) the Nov. 26 State Canvassing Board meeting, at which Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie led the five-person board in considering the Al Franken for Senate campaign’s request that they find a way to count votes from all improperly rejected absentee ballots.

The Al Franken for Senate campaign is asking Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to instruct all counties to redouble their efforts to find missing ballots. “There are votes in Minnesota that aren’t even being accounted for, much less being counted,” spokesman Andy Barr told reporters at a press conference at Franken headquarters in St. Paul this afternoon.

Video and more after the jump.

The campaign of Democrat Al Franken today trumpeted net gains during the first day of Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election recount even in Republican-leaning parts of the state. “We have reason to be optimistic,” recount attorney Marc Elias told reporters at an afternoon press conference. “We are picking up votes across the state.” The candidate himself — seldom seen locally since recount gears began turning — shared that view, according to communications director Andy Barr. “Al is cautiously optimistic,” Barr said.

We won. We won. We won. If Norm Coleman’s campaign repeats this mantra often enough, perhaps it will actually come true. At least that seems to be the reasoning of the Senator’s political camp. “We think we’re three for three right now,” Fritz Knaak, the lead attorney for the Republican, told reporters just moments after a statewide canvassing board officially initiated a recount in the closest U.S. Senate race in Minnesota history. “He’s got more votes than the other side. That’s how it works in our system.”

What will happen to absentee ballots that were rejected as invalid by local election officials? That’s the question currently roiling the U.S. Senate contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken as a state-mandated manual recount gets underway this week.

The Al Franken for Senate campaign announced today it is suing Ramsey County in hopes that a favorable court ruling will compel all Minnesota counties to release the names of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected in last week’s election. Attorney Marc Elias said the campaign may present cases of wrongly rejected absentee ballots to the newly-formed canvassing board that will oversee the recount in the U.S. Senate race between Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Video and more after the jump.