Edward Cleary

The Wall Street Journal today ran Ramsey County District Judge Edward Cleary’s letter, which took the paper to task for its Jan. 5 editorial on the Senate recount, “Funny Business in Minnesota.” A few words and phrases that were in the version Cleary sent are missing, including “reflects poorly on the author,” “the numerous inaccuracies” [...]

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.

Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount has ratcheted up since Election Day to become an inscrutable form of inside baseball. But Tuesday’s proceedings of the State Canvassing Board made even baseball seem easy. Pitchers adjust their pitches based on the umpires’ first few calls, while the first day’s decisions on challenged ballots went by before campaigns began to adjust to the board’s way of ruling. Now both sides are mixing up their pitches like baseball aces, adding and subtracting from their challenged-ballot piles.

The final step in the statewide manual recount of the U.S. Senate race is underway. Shortly after noon, the five-member canvassing board began examining the roughly 1,500 ballots that have been challenged by the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

The statewide canvassing board unanimously voted down a request from Al Franken’s campaign to examine rejected absentee ballots at a meeting this morning. The five-member panel, charged with overseeing the U.S. Senate recount, did not rule on the merits of the Democrat’s case, but rather determined that it did not have the jurisdiction to consider the matter.