canvassing board

A much-criticized Jan. 5 Wall Street Journal editorial that called the Minnesota State Canvassing Board “meek,” Secretary of State Mark Ritchie a man of partisan “machinations,” and Al Franken — who the board determined had won 225 more votes in the statewide recount than former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman — “tainted and undeserving,” has prompted a retort from one of its targets: State Canvassing Board member Edward Cleary.

Here’s the response from Norm Coleman’s recount attorney, Fritz Knaak, to the Minnesota Supreme Court’s denial of Coleman’s motion to stop this afternoon’s State Canvassing Board certification of the vote.
Given our campaign’s unwavering commitment to ensuring that the vote of no Minnesotan is disenfranchised, today’s ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court is both disappointing and [...]

A war of words is beginning to erupt in the U.S. Senate over what appears to be the increasingly likely outcome of the statewide recount in Minnesota: Al Franken emerging as the candidate with the most votes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that he foresaw a Franken win while U.S. Sen. John Cornyn [...]

Here’s a quick recap of the latest developments in Minnesota’s Senate recount:
The biggest remaining pool of disputed ballots — 1,350 that that local officials rejected on Election Day for no legal reason — remain disputed. The campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman differ sharply on how many should be counted, and under a state Supreme Court order they’ll have their say this week at 12 regional meetings where the ballots’ fate will be decided. Coleman must make up a 46-vote deficit if he is to keep his seat.

This morning, for the first time in Minnesota’s drawn-out election for Senate, major media outlets began to report a lead for Democrat Al Franken over Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman. The news came soon after the State Canvassing Board began its fourth and perhaps final day of evaluating ballots the campaigns had challenged during the statewide hand recount of the Nov. 4 vote. As with the two- and three-digit leads that Coleman has held over the course of weeks of recalculating and recounting since Election Day, Franken’s lead is merely a snapshot of a still-changing running total — a turn of the tide that could stay turned or could turn back again

It can’t be coincidence that the Al Franken for Senate campaign pledged today to reduce its pending ballot challenges in the ongoing statewide Senate recount to fewer than 500 by Tuesday. On Friday, Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie estimated that the State Canvassing Board could only evaluate 1,000 such ballots in the four days it [...]

The Minnesota State Canvassing Board met Friday morning to discuss what to do about wrongly rejected absentee ballots and 133 missing Minneapolis ballots in the statewide Senate election recount. Here’s a liveblog of what happened.

As the members of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board — with varying degrees of enthusiasm — fell in line Wednesday to reject Al Franken’s request that they count votes on improperly rejected absentee ballots in his U.S. Senate race with incumbent Norm Coleman, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie warned against leaving such problems for individual [...]

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.

Even with limited activity Saturday in Minnesota’s statewide U.S. Senate recount, Al Franken and Norm Coleman managed to challenge another 368 ballots. The stack that the State Canvassing Board will have to review is now 1,893 ballots high, after two-thirds of the ballots that were cast Nov. 4 have been recounted. Unless the candidates’ campaigns change course, the challenges are on pace to reach nearly 3,000 ballots by the time the recount ends.